this isn't actually my car...

our agent was embarrassed

It was a small miracle we arrived when we did. We had less than a week to buy a house and a storm was coming. Our plane landed mere hours before the storm.

We arrived to find six inches of solid ice in my parents driveway. It was thicker than the sheet in a hockey rink. The snow banks were so big you could only see the top floor of the pink palace - their suburban Dartmouth two story - with dusty rose vinyl siding no less!

It was March Break. I had never seen so much snow in Nova Scotia in my life. Well. I hadn’t until some puckish weather imp gave a gleeful grin and dumped another three feet of snow over the next eighteen hours.

Once the plow cleared the streets the next day, the top floor of the pink palace had disappeared. All that remained was the ridge of the roof. Our agent had six homes lined up for us to see. Curb appeal? We could find that in ‘street view’. Besides, we already knew the house we wanted. This was merely an exercise in due diligence.

I wrote yesterday that in reel estate pretense pays. This commitment to appearances goes far beyond mere decluttering, oozing into every greasy little corner. When our agent picked us up, he apologized for what he was driving us around it.

This isn’t actually my car. Mine’s broken. This belongs to my mom

That’s the excuse he gave. He didn’t seem to be embarrassed by the fact that he borrowed his mothers car. Nope. He seemed distressed that his car wasn’t fancy enough for us, the discerning come from aways that he seemed to have regarded us as.

Now, I can imagine where you might be going with this in your mind - you’re picturing him picking us up in a twenty five year old beige Corolla with bald tires, screeching breaks and shot suspension. I imagine you’re picturing a car so rusty it’s tough to tell where the rust ends and the beige begins.

Nope. That wasn’t the case at all. he picked us up in a year old, bland silver grey Toyota Rav4. His wheels were practical and a bit boring. It seemed like the kind of car I would have driven if I wanted to pretend to be rugged. The Rav4 and he made a lot of sense together.

He lives nearby. When we moved in I saw his real car, his actual car. It was a Suburu. These cars were once thought of as sporty. Now? They’re mostly driven super slowly by cautious seniors whose reactions times aren’t what they once were. They do have a reputation of being both reliable and safe.

Now he has something else. The pandemic boom was good for him. I don’t quite know what he drives, but it looks expensive. I went to their website and I couldn’t find a price. That definitely means expensive. The website used a lot of fancy brand names. The word ‘refined’ came up a lot.

Fancy, safe, reliable and refined - Is that how he wanted to be seen? I saw him as a kind of goofy dude. A skater. We ran in similar circles growing up. We should have crossed paths earlier, but didn’t. Perhaps as he’s aged, he’s been interested in refinement or refining himself. The whole idea of this makes me shudder.

Refined?

Refine and refinement has to do with purity. Purity, and the people who pursue purity scare me. That’s the stuff of which trials, inquisitions and cancelation. What’s more, refinement in things like flour, rice and sugar removes a lot of the good stuff in the name of purity.

Sure, refined oil becomes jet fuel. That’s great. Jet fuel is powerful stuff. But jet fuel, though it gets people places quickly, is not without its share of problems.

The pretense of purity is all around us. People work hard to stage themselves and pretend they are pure. A basic SUV isn’t good enough. We need something more refined, more pure, is the subtext. Style, not substance seems to be of utmost importance.

I wonder what would have happened if our agent had said nothing about the car he was driving. Would we have noticed? Would we have gossiped about it’s mostly utilitarian styling?

I can’t imagine that I would have. Perhaps I’m not refined enough. Then again, refined enough for who? When you’re a whole grain person in a white flour world, some will find that you’re not to their taste. Some might find you a bit too abrupt on their insides.

But, I like it this way. I’d much rather be a whole grain person who brings fiber and bran to the process of being alive, than a well refined white bread asshole that shits diamonds.

How refined is your life?