Yesterday my dad hit me with some shocking news. I guess I have never really thought of my parents as old people. They are very active, don’t have plaid slippers, don’t stoop, own computers that they know how to use and to the best of my knowledge don’t buy the superb value cavalry twill trousers (Two for One whilst our child tailors can still operate machinery) advertised in Saga Magazine.
As I stood with the phone pressed to my head he just hit me with the news. No gentle pre-amble, no kind and softening preparatory words to ease me into it, just the verbal equivalent of pulling off a plaster very fast. Be a man, son.
“We take delivery of our new Honda Jazz tomorrow…” Well bugger me sideways. I wasn’t expecting that. He’s on his way to new knee number two, smoked very heavily in his 20’s and 30’s when it was manly and healthy, so osteoarthritis, cancer or even syphilis would have been less of a shock.
Ashamed? Yup.
I howled with a dismay only to be met with a barrage of reliability, TCO and other salient stats. These that had obviously been pre-prepared and committed to a memory that is a long way from failure.
“But it’s an OAP’s car” I protested weakly, again. To which he replied, “Did you know that the average age of a Honda Jazz driver is 62?” Then the coup de grace, “I’m 75 so am just getting down with the youth.”
theMSguide.com blog 
I considered getting one before I decided on the Clio… Not a pink one though.
Sinful thoughts are different from sinful actions. Well done you for resisting.
They don’t make it in pink any more – Jeremy Clarkson’s mum drives one and he had them make up a batch of the colour especially for her as it was no longer available when she replaced her old model. Which is one saving grace I suppose.
It could be a Skoda Yeti………
Clarkson loves the Yeti…
In brown?
Who TF knows. Whatever colour they are “encouraging” them to big up I s’pose.
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Shame on you Dominic! I hope your father bought an automatic Jazz: a joy to drive, and comfortable passenger seats. I bought mine in November 2004 and sold it this year when the MS and brain tumour made me decide to give up driving before killing anybody. Had only done 30k miles in all that time, and very little of that since DX with MS in 2010, as too tired to drive any distance. It was a nice shade of light blue. Am not a pink person. Am 72 now – so go figure.
I hope your future will be bright.
BTW, I have discussed suicide with my kids, and supported Dignity in Dying for many years. Dammed if i will die on an industrial estate abroad. Am fighting for assisted dying at home. if no assistance, it will have to be a lonely death. But not yet. As we get older, and more disabled, it’s amazing how much that we once thought we could not live without – we decide we can do without. Cycling, driving, walking – what’s coming next I do not want to know.
The Jazz lives on 😦