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Actually, I very much bought it since I technically own it with my mother, but she hasn't paid her part yet.

My mother was driving a tiny Subaru Imprezza and it was a manual that I was reeeeally putting off learning how to drive, which meant that any time we went somewhere, she had to drive. Not really ideal for either of us, frankly.

Anyway. It was getting a few dings and scratches, which I was concerned about. And then the windshield randomly cracked. And I had more than one incident with her where she seemed to be burning her clutch. She started to talk about how maybe we should buy a car TOGETHER. Then I could take the car down to visit my dad sometimes, and I could do the driving on the big hikes. Then she took the car in, found out it had $3000 in repairs and within a week we had bought a 15-year-old Honda from the neighbour of a family friend.

Details:

* It's a 2010 Honda CR-V EX-L, which was owned by a guy who works for Honda, so it's been very well cared for.

* It came with both all-seasons and winter tires, all of which are in good shape, and the brakes are new.

* CR-V's in general are highly rated for seniors, and right away the sightlines are always so much better.

* It doesn't have a back-up camera so if anyone knows anything about installing an after-market camera, I'd love to hear about it.

* It has a small dent on the front driver's side door and a little bit of rust on the passenger side door, but otherwise the body is in good shape.

The crazy thing is that I actually have driven since the pandemic. I used to rent cars and use car share a lot, because you don't need a car in the city, but those costs exploded after 2020. So it was surreal to actually get in a car again and I definitely felt unsure, but it's all come back to me fairly quickly. The car was clearly top-of-the-line when it was bought, so there's a lot to get used to, there, especially on seat and mirror adjustment.

The absolute funniest thing to happen, though, was when we were first pulling out and my mother -- who has nearly exclusively driven small asian cars my entire life -- said "you know what's odd? This car has no emergency brake."

"That seems unlikely."

"Well, look! There's no brake."

(I did not look. I was driving.)

"I'm pretty sure you can't legally have no emergency brake."

"Well, then I don't know where it is!"

When we pulled back in I checked the footwell and sure enough, there was the e-brake. I pointed it out to her and then demonstrated how you set it. "I love these. You just step on it."

"I had no idea!"

"Well, that's the e-brake. Can I put it on?"

"No! Don't put it on!"

"You always put on the e-brake when you're parking!"

"I'll forget it's on!"

"You gotta learn to use it, though."

"Just leave it for now. It'll be fine."

So I did, but this is what I liked about renting cars -- you got to drive all kinds and learned where they tended to put things. Asian cars all did it one way and American cars all did it another way. Asian cars all had the lever in the middle console and American cars all had the pedal in the footwell. I'm delighted that this Honda also chose lever-in-the-footwell. It's definitely my preference.

Anyway. I will continue to live in a big city where owning a car is a PITA and the car will live with my mother, but I will have access to it whenever I need it and it means we can share the driving when we go to family events. We live in Southern Ontario so those events are pretty much always at least an hour or two away. I'm also looking forward to having a bit more freedom to get things done when I'm at my mother's. It's going to be so much easier when I can drive to the grocery store on my own. She's going to LOVE the fact that I can drive the kids around, too. Driving seems to really stress her out -- but not owning a car in that city is pretty stressful, too.

Fingers crossed this was a good buy. I figure better now than later since we have no idea what is about to happen with prices.