On Monday (Seriously? Have we only been home one week? This has been the longest week in the history of weeks.) I called a sitter and M ditched work early so we could go car shopping. We are not car people. Well, we both covet fast shiny sports cars, but when it comes to functional family cars we draw blanks. So, basically, we had absolutely zero idea about what car we wanted. We needed something with four doors, big enough to hold two car seats and a stroller in the trunk, that preferably wouldn’t guzzle $60 of gas a week. (Oh, dear Jeep Cherokee, how we don’t miss your gas guzzling ways.)

You’d think that having just vague needs would make our job easy. You’d be wrong. See, what we ended up doing was going from lot to lot checking out family friendly cars and wishing we were buying Corvettes, Nissan Zs, or Audi TTs. And you’d be surprised how unlike sexy sport cars family friendly sedans tend to be. No, really!

After a painful couple of hours we decided that our best bet was the Honda Civic sedan. Small, fuel efficient, just barely big enough for us, and definitely in our price range. Not sexy, not fast, but good enough. We took it for a test drive and we were pretty much sold. Then, walking around the lot looking for a stick shift model, we happened across the Honda Civic’s sexy sporty version, the Civic Si. I think I heard M’s heart thump in response to my mild “want to take it for a spin?”

The instant M slipped himself into the bucket seat and put his hands on the wheel I knew there was no longer any other car for him. He squealed like a kid in a candy store and almost giggled as he careened around corners and accelerated on the highway. He spent the next three days hunting down the best possible deal on the Internet.

Only issue? The rest of the world also wanted the best deal on that car too. Every time one would pop up on a listing, by the time we called the dealer the car would be sold. All except for one car that was only listed on Craigslist for a couple of hours. We kept trying to convince ourselves that there was something wrong with it, but we also kept coming back to it. Mainly because it was the only one still available. Oh, and because it had the right mileage, color, and price. Details.

As of yesterday that car is now ours. In all it’s black tinted windows glory. That’s right. Our family car is a sedan, a sporty, sexy, gangster sedan. And I bet the gangster who tinted the windows black would not be amused to see two cow print car seats in the back seat of his sports car, but it works for us and that’s all that matters.

Original It’s my life… post.