Big Red

On Sundays, on the road leading out of Oaxaca towards Mexico City, there is a used car… adventure. It’s more like a car flea market. A sort of second hand car limbo. Vendor after vendor lines both sides of the road with wares. Cars, trucks, motorcycles, jeeps, puppies and the usual food and drink vendors vie for your attention for miles. Our friends Sheila and Moe were interested in buying a second hand Volkswagen beetle. They had been to this used car paradise before, and asked us to join them this Sunday on their search. We were delighted.


After discounting a few for reasons most obvious – rust, lack of headlights, no brakes (no, really, they work fine, it’s just because the car is on a flat road in neutral that she runs away from you…) inability to start unless you have that “special touch”, there she was, waiting to be taken home.

Sheila and Moe take her for a quick spin, while Ralph and I stroll through a side lot and look at pick up trucks. We stop for refreshment, and Sheila and Moe find us by asking where the other white couple went off to. They have decided to buy it. The hand break needs work, which the lot salesman says he will fix, and other than that, there is beauty in its simplicity. They head off to put down the deposit which takes it off the sale floor, so to speak, and make arrangements for delivery. I encourage Sheila to explain that the car has to make it up the hill to our house in order for them to close the deal. The salesman assures her that this will not be a problem. And we are confident that if it is, he will simply refund the deposit and it will be back on the lot next week.

Papers are signed, pictures are taken, and we head off to lunch to talk about Spiderman decals and all the places Big Red will go.