I think it is time, with all the modern and technologically-advanced features that come on new cars — backup cameras, side-curtain airbags, tush massagers — that we start requiring one more addition: the factory-installed dent.
Don’t you think? Let’s make it standard on every new vehicle.
Or better yet, right after you sign-off on the paperwork and hand the dealership a check, they should offer you a ball-peen hammer so you can go outside and ceremoniously put the first ding in your brand new auto. The inaugural ding.
Or maybe once you drive it off the lot, you take it straight out to a field where you find the gnarliest looking tree and just scrape the door against it. Right off the lot. Go do it. Get that first scratch out of the way.
Wouldn’t that be great? Wouldn’t that make sense? Wouldn’t that eliminate so much of the stress from the new car experience?
Because if buying a car isn’t stressful enough — finding what you want, haggling over the price, explaining 19 times to the finance office why you don’t want the 74-year warranty that covers you in the event that Martians invade — you then have to get in that new car — that beautiful, perfect, shiny, wonderful new vehicle! — and drive it into this horrible, unforgiving, careless, accident-prone world.
The worst part about a new car? That dread and anxiety over keeping it safe. Knowing that first ding or scratch could happen at any moment. Call it new car paranoia.
You know what I’m talking about.
And I’m speaking from experience here. Because we bought a new car. We’ve had it for less than a month. There weren’t even 500 miles on it. It still had that new car smell and clean floor mats. I hadn’t even figured out how to turn on the AC.
And it was terrifying. When would the first spill on the seats come? When would the first scrape from a low-hanging tree branch ruin the paint? When would the first high-speed interstate pebble mar the finish?
I couldn’t sleep at night. I parked out in the hinterlands at stores, away from other wide-swinging car doors. When I couldn’t park away from the crowd, I tried to interview people parking next to me about their driving abilities: “Has your wife ever called you a careless jerk? Yes!?! Then I’m sorry. You can’t park here.”
Then it happened. Like a God-send. Like the universe said, “I have what you need. Let’s get the pain and the punishment and the torture out of the way so you can live your life.”
Just like that — BAM! … someone backed into our new car.
The waiting was over.
Had the car for three weeks, and already there is a dent in the back hatch.
The auto body guy just shook his head when he saw it.
“How long will it take to fix?” I asked him.
“Better count on about five days,” he said.
“Five days!” I shouted. “You’ll have this car longer than I have!”
He chuckled. Then I think he caught himself. Auto body guys have a keen sense for situations that might end up on the 5 o’clock news.
Add this to the many offshoots of Murphy’s Law. We already have Murphy’s Mutt — if a dog can throw up in your car, it will throw up in your car. Now we have Murphy’s Car — anything that can damage your brand-spanking new car will damage your brand-spanking new car.
But I figure, as with so many things in life, there is an upside. A positive in this whole situation: my new car paranoia will be gone. My new car jinx vanquished. I won’t have to lose any sleep over it anymore. I won’t have to park in the hinterlands. It’s done and out of the way, early. I can live my life and drive my car, not worrying and waiting for that moment when the first scratch comes.
Which is why I’m proposing that factory-installed dent. Or that self-inflicted ding. Just get it out of the way quick. Eliminate all the dread and worry in one quick swing. You’ll sleep better at night. With all the modern technology in cars, I think we can at least offer consumers that.