THE MORNING AFTER. SEEING ZEBRAS?

Yesterday, as Cape Town enjoyed yet another phenomenal sunset, I stood, with my back to the view, in the parking lot at the karate club, kicking the wheels of my broken-down Prius.

Swearing.

I love that car and it is very nearly flawless, but it and it’s battery are co-dependent and that battery is playing up.

Enough! I am too much of a drip to spend any time at the side of scary South African Roads with a badly behaved battery.

It’s a new battery …or a new car.

I know the sensible decision – (choose a new battery all the way), but I am weak, easily bored and susceptible to the thrill of the new.

What to buy?

When I think about cars, my head starts to hurt and my eyes start to water – as if I had been spending too long staring at a Yehrin Tong illustration.

Do other women (no longer sixteen, with hundreds of children) go through the same stress, wrt choosing a car?

Today, in The Mail, (naturally) a feature on how retail therapy is only pleasurable for thin women and that overweight women find it stressful and unpleasant.

Wow. You don’t say? Etc.

The Mail loves to bang the overweight women drum, don’t they? And, as I’ve mentioned before, they never let the fact that they are stating the obvious stand in their way, when repeating themselves.

Grr..but okay.

Back to cars.

Here’s the problem.

I am no longer 16. I have hundreds of expensive children, so, I should buy a sensible, affordable MPV. A Mommobile. I am a MOM. I must Deal With It.

A car is, after all, merely a means of getting from A to B, safely, while doing as little damage to one’s wallet and the environment, isn’t it?

No. It bloody is not.

A car is one of the harshest ways you, as a woman (not 16 blah blah) are reminded how YOU, who YOU still believe to be sexy, attractive and vibe-y, are no longer YOU at all.

Whatever you tell yourself, as you stand glumly waiting to test drive “the sensible choice…”

You are a no-longer 16, MOM on a budget.

I’d rather buy skinny jeans.

That old self, as described above, really wants an Audi TT, or a new shape Freelander, or a massive, impractical, black Range Rover Sport.

But I have children to educate and I cannot fit them, plus the dogs and the Karate Club lift scheme (plus kit) in the back of an Audi TT.

So, while I stand waiting, in that MomMobile forecourt, a little part of me shrivels up and dies.

If I’m not careful, I will drive our of there in a MomMobile and that will be the end of even halfway sexy me until the kids have gone and I can buy a Audi TT and look …absolutely ridiculous.

Because I will be – let’s say, no longer 50!

I will be a joke! An old lady in a MidLifeCrisisMobile.

And that is why I go all Yehrin Tong, when I think of what car to buy.

Does anyone have a solution?

Clearly I need some help with this matter.

…or I might just do something foolish.