My Car is Okay

I’m starting this blog as I move into a new stage in my life. I will soon be a new father. As any guy living today that thinks he’s about ready for fatherhood, we tend to think about our free time. Most guys are considerate to a certain degree. If you’re like me, you’re thinking about how you’re going to get everything you want to do done before the baby comes. It’s a boy by the way. I want to work on my car. I want to hit the gym. I want to build that blog (work in progress). I want to start that business. I want to be a good dad. Priorities. Here are the things I want to accomplish before the baby comes, in the order I think should be my priority.

1. My future as a good dad – I still have a couple of months before the baby is here, and there is nothing inherently wrong with me (my wife would have something else to say about this).
2. I need to start that business and build that blog so that everything is set up by the time the baby comes.
3. Between hitting the gym, working on my car and possibly playing a video game … my life will see the most return on investment if I hit the gym.
4. So …between working on my car and playing video games. Playing video games, unfortunately, takes up a ton of time. I think I’m going to have to say working on my car to make it more efficient, and overall make me feel good is where my attention for my spare time is going to have to go.

Okay. So I’ve decided to work on my car. I’ve never built some crazy, turbo charged, beast of a vehicle. I want my car to be fuel efficient (I commute about 400 – 450 miles a week). I upgraded the air filter to a K&N air filter and keep decent gas in the car. I run fuel injector cleaner about twice a year through the gas tank. I tinted the windows because Los Angeles is just too damn hot with black leatherette interior. I used plasti-dip on my hub caps because I like the black wheels on grey car look, but I would rather spend the money I would have used on rims, on other parts on gadgets. I updated the DRLs to White LEDs.

I asked my wife what she thought of my car. She said it looked good. Later that evening we talked about me teaching our son about cars. I told her I would do my best to be a great dad. I asked if she thought I would be a greatest dad ever. She said, “You’ll be okay … you’ll be the okayest dad ever.” While I wasn’t fine with the idea of just being an okay dad, I knew that most other parts of my life that we’re a priority would end up being okay, at least until the child was a bit older. My video game skills, my fitness, my knowledge of gadgets and all other aspects of not being a great father, devoted husband and overall good human being would just be okay. But … I could be the okayest.

My car, henceforth, would be considered the okayest. I thought of those car tuners rolling around town with the word “illest” on their rear window. So I asked my wife to design a decal that read “okayest”. I stuck it on my car. People come up to me all the time and ask about what it says/means. I proudly tell them. To some, it doesn’t make sense. But many more love the idea. I can’t fake a turbo charged beast. I can’t fake not having rims, or a sub woofer that will make your ears bleed and I really can’t fake that my stock 2011 MKVI 2.5L Jetta is any faster than other vehicles on the road (well, it is faster than some).

If anyone else thinks their car is better than okay, you can pick up the okayest decal from my wife’s Yolk Design Etsy vinyl shop.