In which we end up with too many Volvos

Or maybe you can't have too many Volvos.... I'm not really sure.

So the story began waaaay back in December of last year.  When the DB wrecked my beloved silver Volvo.  I say beloved, because it had automatic gear (yeah I can drive manual, but What A Faff, I'd like a free hand to hold my coffee thankyouverymuch) and a sun roof that you winched open with a crank.  A CRANK!  How awesome is that???  It was practically steampunk!

And I had visions of driving our child(ren) places in it.  And our dog.  'Cause we'd have a dog, in this magic future with a silver Volvo in it.  We even drove it off road, once, because some silly fool had forgotten to connect the road we were on with the road we WANTED to be on... so we drove through an empty field on what looked like a dirt bike course.

Don't try this at home.  Your Volvo might not be so awesome as my Volvo.

This is the car that once stopped a Mercedes from rolling to certain death.  It pulled a camper from Holland to Denmark through a blizzard... in summer tires.

And the DB smashed it against a tree.  Okay... several trees.

He's only recently admitted that maybe he was going a little too fast for the conditions.

But one should also remember that the road is banked the wrong way.  And there might have been something wrong with the car... or the tires.  Definitely something wrong with the tires.  Because you should totally be able to continue to drive the posted speed limit in icy conditions, right?  Just because there is ice and snow all over the place doesn't mean you have to SLOW DOWN!  Pfffft to that!!  It was totally the CAR'S FAULT!

So with the loss of my beloved silver Volvo, we needed another one quickly.  The DB found us one and we went and got it.  It was rust held together with dust, but it had a turbo supercharged engine and the DB was in love.

I was glad I had my tetanus shots up to date.  It was a serious amount of rust.

After the mechanic assured us that the car will not pass inspection again unless we do something to keep the car from falling apart, the DB agreed that we needed to get another car.  He began to search.  But nothing desirable was appearing in our price range.

We agreed that we would wait a while, it was still months and months away from the next inspection, so really there was no hurry.

And still, every night, he stayed up late and "just checked" the on-line car ads.  We went to "just look" at a few cars.  I pointed out once or twice that we had decided that we'd wait to buy another car.  He pointed out that we were "just looking, just in case."

Of course he found one he wanted.  We went and drove it and it was lovely and good and had a radio, but no special extra-charged engine.  I was glad because it meant we might finally be able to drive a car that got a better gas milage (note: it only gets a better gas milage when *I* drive it, go figure).  And it might mean that he'd stop looking at cars and we could stop driving all over Denmark to test drive random Volvos.  And it was red.  The DB was a bit put out.  He wanted black.  "Beggars can't be choosers," I said.  "And it matches my mixer.  I think I'll go for rides with my mixer.  Just to show people how matchy-matchy I am."

He totally didn't get it.  But what does he know?  He wears black socks with his sandals.

Right, so all that was left was to sell our pile of rust.

And then the craziest thing happened.

A guy saw our ad and wanted to buy our car.  But instead of buy our car with cash, he wanted to trade: his Volvo sedan, a newer model with newer parts, for our massive, gas-guzzling, lockjaw-inducing station wagon.

Obviously he was insane.  Or would laugh hysterically at us when he saw the thing in real life.

But he didn't.  He was a Volvo enthusiast who liked to fix up and pimp out Volvos.  He'd run out of things to play with on his sedan and his growing family needed a station wagon.  (Seriously, baby prams in this country are the size of small tanks and about as maneuverable.) And he loved our rusty heap.  So we traded.

Suddenly we had two cars.  In Denmark, that's INSANE.  Thankfully we live out in the middle of nowhere, so people are a bit more forgiving of our obvious lack of priorities.  But most still ask us, "oh, so which one are you selling?" and seem a bit confused when we say, "no, we're not selling either of them at this time."

Could we get by with one car?  Probably.  But since I'm NOT giving up my station wagon (red! radio! power locks!) and the DB prefers the sedan (Burgundy red, lacks radio but has pimped engine), I don't see how we'd ever agree which one to sell.

And that's how we ended up with two Volvos.