So much so much but here’s the main thing.

As the mountain sun faded I drove a red pickup for test purposes.

It wasn’t a stick, or a longbed; it had no cool suicide back doors.

But it was a V8, and oh lord lord, the holy grail, an Fx4. That means enhanced suspension and skid plates, the trim that makes it ideal for rough lonesome roads. It was very clean.

She wanted $7500 in pure cash only. This was a good deal to all appearances, but not a workable deal, especially since she explained that there was just no way she could let it trip off for a day to the mechanic. Red flag for the pretty red pickup.

She says she’ll let us know if it still is up for sale in the morning. The implication being that one of her other suitors might be carrying around thousands of dollars in a brown paper bag. Maybe.

Here’s the thing.

If nothing else, it’s an investment opportunity.

I’m pretty sure that if I gave her seven and a half, I could turn around and put it back up on the same site for Nine, and find a buyer at that price easily. The used car and especially truck market–like the market for rents and mortgages, like the market for fuel and food, is accelerating wildly.

I could be happy enough with this truck myself. I could learn to love it. It sought to charm at first sight and it succeeded pretty well.

Or it might be an entry point into something else altogether. A wheeling kind of dealing.

I haven’t explained to you yet why I even want one.

It’s because I want a bed I can take anywhere, way up the worst roads. A thing called a pop-up camper, mounted to the bed of a pickup, is my current ideal way to get there.

Owning such a rig might be an early qualification, or perq or something, for this Mr. Park Ranger job I have in my head for the other side of winter.

As midnight approaches, I don’t care whether this truck ends up being the One.

There will be others. I might pay more for them for no reason other than an overabundance of caution. Maybe there will be more miles on the one I end up with, but on the other hand maybe it’ll offer a manual transmission, too.

The idealized vehicular world teeters and totters.

I’m trusting in some god thing to supervise the transaction, amen.