Foreign Iron, Part 2

Saturday we went on about the VW and scarcely got to the Opel. The Opel Manta was a sporty little white coupe with a black hood. She looked great. (Clearly these are not pix of the unit we owned but it's the right marque.} Now picture this. We had a lake cottage about 85 miles from our primary residence. Ellie and a 110 pound golden retriever, plus Spot the attack dog, about 55 pounds, in the back seat. Mother and her dog in the front seat while I am in the driver's seat. There is no air conditioner, so windows open, ninety degrees and high humidity. The dogs shed. All of them. Hair is flying about the interior of the car, all of us doing the "ptoo, ptoo" trying to keep it out the mouth. At the end of the journey tufts and threads of hair settle everywhere.

All this by way of explanation as to how it happened that we traded this cute little machine for the already mentioned and little-loved Phoenix. Okay, so there was more room in it and it seemed the thing to do at the time.