Garagephilia

It has been 46 years since I had a garage to park the car in. Forty-six years!!!

Okay, for four of those years, we lived in Tennessee, Arizona, Japan, and California, and didn't really need a garage in any of those places.

But forty-TWO years here in IOWA!

Up until a year ago when I got my Fiesta, I never had remote start, either!

So, fifteen minutes before you want to go someplace, you bundle up, go out to the car, start it, turn on the heater and the de-frost. And then spend five to ten minutes in the sub-zero temps scraping the frost from the window so you will be able to see out!

Then you go back inside and wait for another ten minutes or so until the car has thawed out and the windows are at least partially clear. The remote start is nice, but the car will only run for ten minutes and then shut itself off, so it isn't really a solution to the problem.

You carry a metal-edged scraper in your car so that after you have been away from your car for longer than an hour, you have something to scrape the windows again.

Oh! Let's talk about snow! If there has been significant snowfall, you just might have to get your car brush out and push the snow off your hood and possibly the top of your car so you can see out of the windows!

And this is if you can get moving if there isn't too much snow blocking your path. Okay, then get the snow shovel and dig out a path for the wheels to get to the street.

And you had better not have forgotten and left your car parked on the street so that the snow plow has gone around you, effectively blocking you in with a couple of feet of snow on all three sides of you.

Does it sound like I am complaining? Well, it's not the weather I'm complaining about. I LOVE living in Iowa. It's merely the lack of a GARAGE that sets me off!

And I want one that is connected to my house so I can go right in without having to negotiate snow and ice on the way.

Is that too much to ask for?