or, “Tell him what he’s won, Jay.” “Monty, it’s a brand new car!”

And for us, it’s a new used car. We’re very excited.

Dawn went to yoga class and I went to the gym. We then went to Whole Foods and bought eggplant. Then we went and got the Taurus washed at the Mr. Wash across the street from Wes Greenway’s Alexandria Volkswagen. We had a 1:00 p.m. appointment with Terry Davis, but we showed up about ten after twelve. He was nice and gave us his full attention right away.

We were looking for either a Jetta wagon or a Ford Focus wagon, from either Carmax or someplace else with certified vehicles. Well, I had hoped we could find a Volvo V40, but Dawn hates them, so that was out. We couldn’t find any Jetta wagons at any local Carmax, but we had spotted one, on AutoTrader.com, at a VW dealer in Alexandria. It’s a 2002 and was $12,950 with 48,021 miles on it. It was a bit cheaper than others. Not sure why.

Terry got us into it right away and explained a few of the features to us. Then Dawn and I took off in it. I drove at first, taking a right off of West Glebe onto Mount Vernon Avenue. I pulled into the Birchmere’s parking lot and took some tight turns. Then I gave the wheel over to Dawn, who pulled us out and about and around back to the dealer. “We’ll take it,” we said.

Was another two hours before we got out of there, after accepting $1200 for the Taurus and signing our name many times for Kevin the finance guy, who used to work in NYC in Bldg. 7 of the WTC and lost his job after 9/11.

We tried to go to the DC inspection station, but they were closed and shut up, even though we got there at 2:52 p.m. and they ostensibly close at 3:00 p.m. on Saturdays.

Dawn loves driving now. We’ve named the new car Mary, which I think of as being short for Rosemary but Dawn thinks it’s just Mary.

It has a sunroof, heated seats and a CD player. It has an alarm system, operated by a remote that also locks and unlocks the doors. It has roof rails. It’s got more storage space than our house.