A Little Red Jeep

And an even smaller garage

A couple of days ago, I found the cutest little red Jeep for sale.

1965 CJ5

My granddaughter and I went to check it out.

She agreed that it is cute, but declared an absolute unwillingness to ever ride in it. Apparently, as it has no seat belts, and no doors, she’s convinced that she’d fall out and die. I was going to explain to her that she could hold on to the ‘oh shit bar’ bolted to the dashboard, but was blocked from delivering that bit of wisdom when I noticed that it comes without said ‘oh shit bar.’

Nevertheless, I assured her that when I was her age, my parents had one quite similar to it, also with no back seat, so while the parents were up front, my brother and I were tossed into the back, riding on the steel, and we never fell out. She seemed dubious. I’m not sure what it is with kids and seatbelts, not to mention children’s car seats today. Wimps!

While telling her that story, I remembered that my aunt and uncle also had one quite similar, but it had a back seat added, so my cousins got to ride in comfort. Jerks!

I’ve thought long and hard about buying it the past couple of days.

Alas though, I have a problem.

While my house is good sized, it is mated with what has to be the world’s smallest garage.

It was built in 1932, but I’m not actually sure why. It’s just too darn small to reasonably expect any car to fit. It’s too short, and it’s too narrow. Right now it has some yard tools, some firewood, and my little tiny eight foot by four foot travel trailer inside. With just those things, it’s so full that I can’t walk inside of it.

That tiny silver trailer from 1959 would look awfully cool being pulled by this little red Jeep from 1965 though, so the Jeep is really hard to pass up.

But, alas, where on earth would I put the Jeep if I bought the thing? It’s got no roof and no sides, so certainly can’t be parked outside in my rainy climate, and there is no hope of ever fitting it into my abnormally tiny garage. So, I had to walk away.

Now of course, I need a Jeep older than myself just about as much as I need a hole in my head, particularly as it wouldn’t be the thing for driving down today’s freeways, so perhaps the tiny garage is a good thing.

Maybe that little garage is the ultimate savior from the draw of impulse purchases. If I had a normal garage I might find myself collecting tiny vintage trailers and tiny buggies to pull them instead of hats. And surely that would be a much harder hit to the wallet!