Car Sickness

For those of you that know my younger brother, you know his love of cars and his hatred of having one for any long period of time. Well, he set a new record this week, as he gave up on his last car after only 11 months of ownership. Let me give you all a quick recap to bring you up to speed on his sickness.

When my brother turned 16 (1998), he was able to buy my grandmother's 1994 Mitsubishi Eclipse from her, giving him his first car...a decent one to start with for sure, it even had a spoiler. By the time he was 18, he had added one of those loud, ridiculous mufflers to it, which made it offensive to drive next to, and downright painful to drive in. I think he started to feel that way too, so he quickly ditched that car, and bought my mom's 1991 Nissan 300ZX from her.

The Z was definitely a pimpin ride, even at its age, and since my mom babied it since she had always wanted a Z, he again got himself a pretty good car to work with. Unfortunately, he was still in his "souping up cars" stage and after he blew one speaker and killed the battery on the car four times because of the woofer he bought, it took only the few minor scratches caused by the tornado that came through College Park before he had once again moved on to another car.

This time, he picked out a brand new 2002 Silver Nissan XTerra. It was a nice car, and the first SUV that anyone in my family had gotten. But we knew it wouldn't last, and sure enough, it got keyed outside his fraternity house, plus it was that fast, so he traded it back to Nissan's parent company, Infiniti, and grabbed himself another brand new car, a 2003 Infiniti G35 Sedan. This one he got fully loaded with the luxury and sports package, and every other whistle and bell, with only the exception being the GPS system. It was a damned sweet car, and even I was a bit jealous of this purchase (not so much with the incredible money loss he was enduring)

I liked the G35 so much, I took it off his hands when, of course, he grew tired of it, and decided he wanted to go back to an SUV. So in February 2005, I bought his car from him, and he stayed in the Nissan/Infiniti family again, and bought a brand new 2005 Nissan Pathfinder. This time, he did get the GPS and now he's a family joke, and we're wondering which car he's going to get the following year.

Well, here we are, less than a year later. Kevin just got his Pathfinder back from the body shop after someone smashed his whole front end, costing that guy over $8000 in repair costs, and of course, this leaves Kevin less than happy with his car. So, so long Pathfinder...

Hello, 2006 Black Lexus IS350. Now it's just got silly. This car is ridiculously sweet looking, but how in the hell is he able to afford all this switching? I'm insistent he won't tell the family how the deals with the car guys really ended up, but I've figured that in all his exchanges, he's cost himself over $10,000, money he could be putting aside to get a condo or something.

But, unfortunately, he has a sickness, and I'm not sure if he'll ever get better. Certainly, the remedy is not more cowbell.