Making Amends

The Kia Rio has now been retired as a faux wheel drive vehicle and has begun a life of luxury. On weekends it sits in the covered parking space instead of dune bashing in the Empty Quarter or chugging up and down wadis. It has become a true saloon car instead of an almost four wheel drive.

And in its place we have the Hyundai Santa Fe. Previously owned by a friend of ours who has moved onto greener pastures, it is tricked out with tinted windows, royal blue paint, and cruise control. We no longer even have to exert the effort to unlock the doors individually with a key--with

the push of a single button all doors unlock simultaneously. While all of this is nice, Silas most appreciates the individual air conditioning vents and reading lights, and the fact that the cargo area folds out into two extra seats, allowing Tehva to have her very own "cage".

Driving the Santa Fe allows me to feel less of a peasant here. It is big, which means that by default all of those itty-bitty saloon cars must respect me. It has four wheel drive which means I can take it into wadis without worrying about whether or not I will ever come out again.

And the windows are darkly tinted which means that Joy can change in the front seat without that Omani bus driver seeing her--until he got right in front of the car and looked through the windscreen--the tinting there is almost nonexistent per Omani law. Then he nearly wrapped that school bus around a cement wall. Best of all, the Santa Fe looks like we paid more than 10 riyals for it, unlike the Kia Rio which possesses an air of plasticity and appears to have come out of a vending machine. You know, the kind where you insert a quarter, turn a knob, and get a plastic ring. Or a gum ball. Or a Kia Rio.

So feeling less the peasant, I decided to pack up Joy, Rachel, Abigail, and my own brood, and head to Qurm where, you no doubt will remember, there is a skating rink and lots of other people who drive nice, big cars. We thundered down the highway, burning lots of fossil fuels all the way. As we drove along the engine purred instead of doing the Kia Rio Whine. We looked down upon other people on the road instead of hoping, as in the Rio, that they would notice us and PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE not hit us. The children, content with their individual vents and bounty of space, never even noticed one another. It was pure bliss.

And there was the skating rink after a trip that felt all the faster for the comfort experienced during the ride! But just as quickly as I pulled into the skating rink's lot I also noticed that the parking spaces are itty bitty there, made for a Kia Rio, not a hulking Santa Fe. So I did what any SUV owner would do--I decided I would make the car fit, dammit. I pulled up and then reversed and then pulled forward and then reversed. And just as Joy offered to get out (not to worry, she was fully dressed at that point) and help me negotiate this anorexic parking spot, I hit a tree.

The tree wasn't big--as a matter of fact it was little more than a collection of three unassuming branches sticking up out of the ground. However, it was big enough, and I was going fast enough, to allow the tree to leave an impression on the back of the car.

Did I mention we had owned the car for three days at that point?

Needless to say, my argument that Tony had dented AND scratched the Rio within a month of its purchase, on a cement wall that was right in front of him, in broad day light, held absolutely no water. Apparently denting the Santa Fe is a sin much worse than scratching and denting the plastic car.

Although I am reassured by many that body work is cheapy-cheap in Muscat, and that dents are so commonplace here as to be almost not worth mentioning, I still am being made to rectify the situation. And so, if you find a few weeks go by without a blog post, well, you will know that I am busy making amends.

My knees are killing me.