I DO!

Deciding to buy this car was for me much like what I imagine committing to that "other" union must be for others. It had been on my mind for some time – well, say 25 years.

My brother and I had started obsessively playing Top Trumps “World Class Cars”, “Super Cars” and the like, resulting in an effortless and - for all intensive purposes – permanent imprint of meaningless Exotic Car statistics in our subconscious. We will for instance always know that the Ferrari 365GTB/4 Daytona’s V-12 engine has a displacement of 4390cc and that the Citroen SM is 1836mm wide.

The BMW 3.0CSL showed up in the “World Class Cars” pack of cards. It was puppy love. Granted, the CSL was a limited production lightweight aluminum body version of the highly successful Le Mans racer, the CS was actually an attainable classic in my teenage mind, at least when compared to say a Lamborghini Miura.

I remember the first one I ever saw on the road. It was on a family trip to Europe. I don’t recall exactly what city but it was parked on a quiet cobblestone street, simmering with a menacing calm that hooked me immediately. Being but an early teen however, it would be some years before I’d actually start dating.

I drove my first coupe but 3 years ago. After a peripatetic plod around the world and a wheel-less decade in NYC, I was finally in Southern California and the dating scene was hoppin’! Rust-free bodies, mmmm mmmm…My first was a little underwhelming, original engine 2800CS that (ahem) “needed TLC”. I started online dating and became acquainted with coupes formerly owned by ZZ Top, Sean Connery and star of my #2 all-time favorite film, Malcolm McDowell. The latter I made a pass at but was turned down in favor of another suitor. I slept around….a Right-Hand-Drive CSL (something fishy with her) and a modified, proudly cared-for CS (a beauty but our timing just wasn’t right) being the more memorable. Up till then, I could never really visualize “happily ever after”, though that last one gave me a glimpse before I trashed the idea of settling down once again.

I may have been launching a brand of condoms in Egypt but I was totally celibate as far as the dating scene went. Vicious Sahara sandstorms, madcap driving etiquette and an Air Quality Index that fondly earns Cairo the moniker “ashtray of the world” are not conducive to finicky, high maintenance 30-somethings. So by the time I returned to sunny San Diego, I was…mmm…fidgety.

First time I saw her picture and profile, she reminded me of my old flame from a year ago. Near-identical color with a ravishing but yet somewhat more understated body. A well-groomed & classic-looking 33, but modern & robust underneath the hood. Nervous with excitement, I had my brother chaperone me on our first date and I knew she was the one the moment I saw her.

She came from a good family – though there were rumors of fast “Friends” in her past. No matter. She had come through all that with flying colors and was available. I proposed and she accepted! WOW!

Then the inevitable started happening…..be careful what I wish for, I just might get it? As the wedding invitations were dropped in the mail and my garage was being cleaned out to make way for the new bride, jitters set in. Would my parents approve? Was I really ready for this commitment (TLC, in sickness and in health, frequent and costly maintenance etc etc)? This would be the largest sum of money I’d ever spent on any one item. Blah Blah Blah, the doubts were appearing from out of the woodwork.

I left the altar at the 11th hour. Her Dad was speechless but sympathetic.

There’s always a very specific instance in time, an infinitesimally singular moment of clarity in the lead-up to unprecedented life experience where you simply surrender to fate, where the mind with all its rational flexing no longer serves any purpose. The moment before crouching those knees and leaping into the void atop the world’s highest bungee jump; the instant before the electric clippers shave off four years of hair in advance of two-and-a-half years of military service. That instant before "I DO".

But old habits die hard. The day after "I DID", I upped and started a new job in another city. Here I was in another long-distance relationship. Only this time I know this one will last.