Love Your Car?

by Bonacci

Buy a new Chevy. If you don’t love it, we’ll take it back. I swear I just heard that on the telly. There were some pictures, sure. I just wasn’t paying attention. Not until those magic words. That’s it? Just buy it and you can return it? In the 80’s I bought a new Ford. It had serious fuel pump problems. I think I had possession of the car for a total of 2 weeks the first 3 months I owned it. Ford knew there was something wrong with that car, but they wouldn’t take it back.

If I don’t love it. What’s that mean? What if I am distant in relationships? What about people who don’t know how to love? Is there some sort of prequalification process to determine whether you’re able to love anything? Maybe you love it but say otherwise so you can get a newer car. Maybe you just don’t believe in developing deep, meaningful, lifetime relationships with an inanimate object. If you’ve never loved a car, are you disqualified?

I didn’t see an asterisk in the advert. We’re trained to look for those asterisks. Does the whole world not know that * is a placeholder that means, “We are lying”? I used one of those yesterday. I put it there so I can honestly say that I didn’t lie. Except I did. But I signaled I was so it’s not really lying. Is it?

So back to Chevy, the asterisk doesn’t matter because I didn’t see one. Maybe it was there but it was so small, I didn’t see it. If there was an asterisk, what does it mean? What’s the condition? What’s the codicil? What if I buy a car thinking I can return it, and then become stuck with a car I never meant to own? All because of a special character.

Let’s say there’s no *. If I don’t love the car, Chevy will take it back. How do I prove I don’t love it? Should I treat it badly and beat it regularly? Cheat on it by driving other cars? What if I misuse the car before I decide I don’t love it? Will Chevy take it back even if it has a dent or scratch? I guess that would probably be a good thing to put next to the asterisk.

My point is, I have seen so much shady advertising that I don’t believe any of it. Even the assumingly direct phrase, “If you don’t love it we’ll take it back” troubles me. It’s too direct. There’s got to be a catch. If I were in the market for a new car, this advertising campaign would turn me away from Chevy. I don’t believe their ad. How can I trust their cars?

I want a car that comes out and tells the plain truth. If I don’t like the car after I drive it off the lot, I’m screwed. Now there’s a car I can believe in.