View from the North 40: A whole new level of confusion

My husband John and I bought a new car.

And by new car, I mean we bought a car that is 14 years old, but it has barely over 100,000 miles on it, so it’s definitely new-new to us. In fact, it’s six years newer than the car it’s replacing. A lovely, understated tan car that died in six-vehicle pileup about three years ago.

We loved the tan car so much that we shopped and shopped for another one, but they were too popular either to afford, or to stay on sale long enough for us to find and buy before some other lucky devil did. Eventually, we resigned ourselves to driving the pickup li...