“F” Stands for “Fancy”
By Debbie Sehulster – Mindset Wizardry
When living in another country, so many things are different. One thing I’ve learned is that you must appreciate the humor of the odd things you experience. Here’s a conversation I had with my husband last week about a car he rented while we were in Brasilia.
Me: You rented a car and listed me as a driver?
Roberto: Yes.
Me: Did you get the automatic? You know that I never learned to drive a stick shift. And driving around in a new city isn’t the best place for me to learn.
Roberto: No, it’s a stick shift. That’s all they had.
Me: OK, I guess you’ll drive then.
Roberto: Yep.
Me: What did you rent?
Roberto: A small Volkswagen.
Me: Is it a Bug or a Golf?
Roberto: No, the Gol. The Golf is a much nicer car than what we got. The F in Golf stands for Fancy. This car is not fancy, but it is red. It should be easy to find in a parking lot. Also, the rental car company offered me an upgraded version.
Me: What’s the upgrade?
Roberto: The car has a phone holder but no way to charge the phone and no Bluetooth, but the phone will stay in one place. It also has an AM/FM radio and air conditioning.
Me: Hmm. When I say this, I’m thinking, these are upgrades???
Roberto: The car is small so it will fit anywhere. This is actually a good selling point since parking spaces are generally ridiculously small in Brazilian cities.
Me: Will this tiny car get us where we need to go?
Roberto: I think so, if you don’t mind that it’s the size of a golf cart and kind of sounds like a lawnmower. It also has 1990’s technology. Meaning no phone chargers, no rear camera, etc. It also had manual roll up windows but only in the back, an interesting design choice.
Me: Well, let’s take it out for a drive around Brasilia then.
The little rental car ended up being fine for doing some sightseeing. It was functional and we didn’t have any problems, even though it seemed to be an older rental car.
We met some friends at a nightclub one night and a guy offered to “guard” our rental car if we paid him some money. Roberto told him that he didn’t think that there was much danger of the car being stolen so he passed on the “security”. His logic was that thieves would prefer a car with modern technology and one with a more powerful engine. He was right, no one took the car.
When we left the club, we took three of our friends with us, so they didn’t need to wait for a cab or an Uber. The little car was OK when there were two of us, but it felt like a clown car when it was fully loaded. There wasn’t much room in the back seat for 3 adults when the seats were pushed back to accommodate tall people in the front seats. However, we made it work and had a good laugh on the ride back to our hotel.
When Roberto and I got back home to Salvador, we certainly appreciated our modern SUV.