Last month, my elderly car and I both broke down. It simply quit running on a country back road. After a nanosecond of thought, I made my way to civilization and bought a new one.

That’s always a risky business with me.

For example, I once leased an almost new station wagon that worked fine for a few months. Then, somewhere down a back road, there was a loud bang and the car began to fill with smoke. Not good. I nursed it back to a main road, had it towed to a dealer and found out that I had blown a frost plug — whatever that might be. They fixed it and all went well until a few months later. I was driving down the same back road when there was another loud bang and more smoke. Yes, another frost plug had gone to meet its maker.

When my lease was up, I returned the car to the dealer, who tried to sell me another one of his models. “I’ll call you,” I lied, as I shredded his business card.

Here’s another example: one winter about 10 years ago, I lived down yet another back road behind eight miles of hills and snow. To get to my place, I usually had to stop when I left the pavement, get out and put chains on the tires. When I returned to the main road to go shopping a week or so later, I then had to stop and take off those chains. Over the winter, I did this perhaps five times and finally decided it was too much work.

So, I went out and bought the vehicle that broke down last month: a mid-sized SUV for something like $40,000. It handled the road with no trouble, but when I computed the cost of the car against the five times I had had to put the chains on and off, it worked out to be $8,000 each time. Perhaps I hadn’t made a wise economic decision.

Before I bought that SUV, I’d been reading the ads and watching them on TV, and had fixed in my mind the vehicle I wanted. So, I made my way to a dealer in Toronto and said I would like to take one for a test run. Perhaps I should have trimmed my beard, or at least washed it, because the salesman insisted on coming with me. The car was a pleasure to drive. I went down to the lake, found an empty parking lot with a small snowdrift and drove the car smack into the middle of it.

“What are you doing?” the salesman asked. “Why have you parked in a snowdrift?”

“Relax,” I told him. “I’ve seen this on TV. I’ll just put her in gear and we’ll float out of here like a butterfly.”

I put the car in drive and then reverse, and then one, two and three: all the wheels whirred and we went nowhere. Not good.

“Someone’s going to have to get out and push,” said the salesman, who was wearing a light coat and thin-soled shoes.

“Yup,” I said. And I sat there. I knew that if I got out in my big boots and heavy coat and freed the car, he would take off to the dealership and leave me adrift.

No, I didn’t buy that make of car, but I bought one much like it — the one that just died on the back road.

My SUV had been nearing its end, so I’d been watching TV and reading ads again. I’d also been researching gas consumption and reading reports. I was possibly getting smarter. I knew what I wanted.

So, I went to the dealer, told a salesman what I was looking for and he rolled one out.

“Take her for a spin,” he said, getting in beside me, even though I had washed, shaved and put on a clean shirt.

Off we went, down a paved road and then down a country road. No problems. Then I spotted a gate leading into a pasture, made a turn and headed across the ploughed field.

“No, no,” said the salesman.

“I’m only doing a little off-roading,” I told him. “I’ve seen the ads.”

“If you would just return to the road, sir,” he said. “Slowly.”

Which I did. When we got back to the dealership, he asked if I was ready to deal.

@page_break@“I’ll call you,” I said. We both knew it was a lie.

Then, I went a couple of kilometres down the road, found a dealership that handled much the same kind of SUV, pointed one out to a salesman and said that I would take it.

“Don’t you want to drive it?” he asked.

“Too much work,” I said. “Just deliver it.”

Which they did a few days later. And we’ve been happy together. So far. IE