Ode to Zeva Louise

 

you know you’ve bonded with your car when, after over 2 years of driving her, you still walk out to the parking lot and as soon as you see her, you exclaim, “oh look at her!  she’s so cute!”  when I’m out of town without Zeva, I often greet her upon my return with, “awww!  hey baby girl!”  true story.

in Florida, Zeva was just plain cute and fun.  here in Torrington, WY, Zeva turns heads.  some of the memorable experiences so far:

-a friend of ours came over and when he walked in, he goes, “Did you know someone left a box on your driveway with an engine in it?”  now, since we had just moved in, I was thoroughly confused and thought that, well, maybe this was some kind of cowboy-culture welcome gift I didn’t know about.  some initiation to the neighborhood, if you will.  our friend kept telling us he was serious.  eventually, I realized he was referring to my car.  :)

-while going through the drive-thru at McDonalds (I was getting oatmeal, ok?  c’mon!), the kid working the window exclaims, “cool box car!!!!”  the kid was so stoked to see Zeva.  he knew all about Scion xB’s.  yet his eyes were so big with excitement that I wondered if he’d ever actually seen one in real life.  I like to think that Zeva totally made his day.  realistically, he probably totally forgot about her within 45 seconds of me pulling away.  but I didn’t tell Zeva that.

-the other day at church, Paul told a high school boy to take some of the music equipment out to my car.  the conversation went something like this:

Paul: “Hey – take this out to Jen’s car.”"
Kid: “Which car is it?”
Paul: “The car that looks like a box!”
Kid: “OH!  That one?  The one that totally doesn’t look like it belongs in Wyoming?”
Me (I was walking right behind him, he didn’t realize it): “That’s because she’s from Florida!!”
Kid (turning around, surprised I had heard him): “Ooooh – that explains it.”

-while getting out of Zeva at the coffee shop, an older man walking by stopped and had a big smile on his face.  he asked me what kind of car it was, how it handled with the wind, and what kind of gas mileage it got.  I’m pretty proud of her gas mileage (once I got 36mpg with her!) – but she does get blown around a lot with the wind.  so when I told him that part, I made sure we had walked a little ways away from Zeva so she didn’t hear.

-while leaving the grocery store the other night, a dad with his little boy (maybe 3 or 4 years old) walked by and the kid was looking at my car and exclaimed, “cool car!!!!!”  sooooo cute.

I definitely have not seen any other xB’s in town yet.  sometimes I feel totally out of place driving Zeva around.  but that’s OK.  if we start feeling too comfortable, it’ll be a sign to move on I suppose.  ;)