When I did finally drive my car into work, that Tuesday, I decided to not make a conspicuous deal of it on the superficially sound reasoning that if someone was interested in the new car in the parking lot, they'd say something, whereas if I started talking about it unprovoked I might run into people who didn't care at all what if anything I drove. I probably just think this sort of thing to go along with my natural shyness. Nevertheless about ten minutes into the day I got a call on the office phone, disrupting my watching of The Price Is Right from Monday, from one of the people on the first floor (the one I work with most, as it happens) asking if that was my new car, and since it was, it was a sweet-looking ride.
This sentiment would be echoed over the week as other people noticed the car, or noticed I was around at a time they thought of the car, often as we were arriving or leaving. As I was leaving for the night once, in fact, the company's owner put in one of his occasional appearances and he liked the looks of the car too. He asked if it was Saturn and I initially said yes, then caught and corrected myself. He grunted a bit that I should have bought an American car; I pointed out American car companies could certainly have made something like this. I also joked that I was finally confident that he was keeping me on staff a while; he commented that, oh, yeah, he had to talk to me about my project, tomorrow. Gulp. (The talk proved harmless; he was sulking again but briefly about some database issues that once identified I was very well able to fix.)
It would be Saturday before I'd loan my car to someone for the first time. This would be to my mother, who needed to get to her hairdresser's, when my father had gone to the library with the Toyota Something and had promised to be back by noon, when he wasn't. So I gave her one of my other sets of keys (I don't think it was the one with the little code plate for re-creating the keyless remote, but I'm not sure) and went back to bed. Ten minutes later my father arrived, and he would later in the day be a touch hurt that she didn't wait for him to get back with the car even though he was only a little late. Her argument was that a little late was still late. I still wonder if she wasn't looking for the chance to drive it. While she had my car, she did close the moon roof's front side --- leaving the rear seats' window open --- and set the radio to the infinitely annoying 101.5 FM. How utterly normal.
Trivia: By the summer of 1903 the Ford Motor Company was down to its last $223.65 (from an initial capitalization in mid-June of about $28,000) without selling a car. Source: Henry and Edsel: The Creation of the Ford Empire, Ricahrd Bak.
Currently Reading: Salt: Grain Of Life, Pierre Laszlo.