Jon’s friend, Kris, is selling his car. (The listing is here, if you’re interested.) Now, I should tell you that this is no ordinary car. It’s a BMW M3, Dinan Edition. This is a balls-to-the-wall, in-your-face, built only for insane speeds kind of a car.

And Kris is trying to get Jon to buy it.

Man, it is nice, says Jon.

Well, here, says Kris helpfully, take it for a day. Trade me cars. See how you like it.

So Tuesday night the switch was made. Jon left the house driving his Ford Escape, took the boys from the church youth group to WalMart for their Sub-for-Santa shopping, and somewhere along the line the switch was made. He pulled into the driveway at 9pm in Kris’s M3.

He came in almost singing, “Who wants to go take a ride?!?”

The children, who had already been in their pajamas and in bed with lights out, came running down the hall. “Me, me, me!”

 So we all piled into the M3; and I do mean “piled”. It’s a 2 door coupe, hardly a “family car”. The kids sat in the back and grappled with seat belts, and Jon drove down the street in the direction of the freeway.

“Wow, you need to get this car,” said Zoe, mesmerized by the glow of the navigation screen.

“Don’t encourage Daddy,” I said over my shoulder.

The M3 is both an automatic and a clutchless manual… complete with “paddle shifters” behind the steering wheel. It goes 0-60 in four seconds; we found this out firsthand while blasting up the I-15 on-ramp at record-breaking speeds. The children were in the backseat (no car seats, mind you), screaming, their little cheeks flapping backwards against the back seat like those slow-motion astonaut take-off videos you’ve seen in grade school. I looked over at my husband who had glazed over wide eyes and a grin plastered to his face. And that fast, it was over. He let off the gas peddal and merged. Jachin was screaming something about “why does daddy want to kill us?” and Zoe (the rebel after her daddy’s heart) was screaming “You need to get this car, dad!”  I told Jon that he was grounded from this car unless he could promise to be half responsible about driving it. He said it was pointless to have this particular car if you intended to be responsible. Then I asked him if he wanted to go back home and make out (yeah, this car does that to you). But he said that he wanted to drive fast some more first.

Jon drove the car to work yesterday. Deals were struck before he left in the morning. Jachin told him that for every second he drove over 75 mph on the freeway, he owed Jachin 10 cents. When Jon returned home last night at dinner time, Jachin said, “Ok, Dad, how much do you owe me?”

Jon replied honestly, “About $250.”

It’s a fabulous car… does anyone else want to buy it? Please? If for no other reason than to keep my husband from driving it…

3 Comments »

1. Greg would be fawning over it, right now, if he wasn’t so far away. The man loves himself a quick car.

   Comment by Mama Milton — December 6, 2007 @ 4:34 pm

2. My hubby asks if Jon’s friend mentioned that an oil change costs around $200. I feel your pain girl…I am forever fighting the love of German engineering. My man has a wondering eye but it’s only for girls named Porsche and Audi.

   Comment by kerri — December 7, 2007 @ 2:35 pm

3. Ah, men and their fast cars. That one looks incredible. I could never let Dave drive it - even just to try it. I’d never get him out of it.

   Comment by Leslie — December 7, 2007 @ 7:07 pm

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