Thursday, June 24, 2010

The Fiat 500

I see this car everywhere and I want one. They are coming to the U.S. in early 2011. We owned a Fiat station wagon once. Picked it up at the factory in Milan, paid for it, and it wouldn't start. We called it The Citrona the four months we owned it. Our two toddlers slept in the back while Tom and I camped in a blue pup tent in gravelled campgrounds. The best camp was above Florence. At night, we walked around envying the Germans and their nifty trailers with the white bedding turned down at one corner. Then we would return to our pup tent, put on the Knorr soup, butter the brown bread and have dinner.

I read that Fiat has improved! (I'm a sucker for tiny cars.) I love the chrome line running through the logo.

I suppose it is human to want stuff. I was hoping I'd get over that. I have too much stuff as it is. Sometimes, I want to blow my stuff up.

And start with new stuff.

Pascal would say that was a distraction from having to think about our own deaths. Mostly, I've been reading mysteries, but I got Pascal's Pensees in there.

Reading mysteries is also a distraction from thinking about death. And watching The Black Adder on the BBC. And riding the tram through the second bezirk as we did today. Eating ice cream in Schwedenplatz. Dancing in your underwear.

9 comments:

Sarah said...

Lorazepam is a good way to not think about death.

(So I've heard.)

Why don't you run on down to Prater and ride that Sombrero ride? You'd think about death so much that when you get home that topic would bore you. To death.

Jason Merrell said...

Thank you, Louise. Love this.

gigi said...

1. I love Fiat and tiny cars
2. I often want to blow up my stuff and start with new stuff
3. "I have a cunning plan"

Rachel said...

This has set the tone for my day. I think I might follow through on blowing up my closet and just drive around naked in a Fiat.

Marcia said...

i have a fiat in my garage. it is old. and blue, sort of. It ran for a few minutes after we bought it in 1995. I don't know it's year. It's a convertible purchased for me. I have never driven it.

PS I like to think about death. Sometimes I try to hold my breath until I die. So far I've been unsuccessful.

JourneyBeyondSurvival said...

Catching lightning bugs and cheering up husbands are good ways to not think about death.

Jacqueline said...

I drove the autostrade in a Fiat while high on over the counter cold medication bought in Rome which made me hallucinate. Audi's going 150 miles an hour would come up behind me flashing their headlights. Death stared me right in the face.

Jason Merrell said...

Would you recommend some favorite mystery novels?

Soozcat said...

So cunning, you could put a tail on it and call it a weasel!