Well, we have a car for Kat----or at least we will on Wednesday---and Mr. Philately and I are still happily married. Who would have thunk it? It was not that I expected to get divorced, not over a car, but I did expect some arguing, some sulking, some harsh words, and more frustration. Hey, by the time we get to our fiftieth anniversary, rather than our upcoming twentieth anniversary, we may be able to do just about anything together.

This time, I tried very hard to avoid a fight. My first impulse was to put the project into Mr. Philately�s lap entirely and we certainly started out that way. He and Kat went off and test-drove a 1991 Toyota Celica that was �okay.� He put in an offer on it and subsequently withdrew it although it was obvious to me that there was no chance it would be accepted anyway. The woman selling it had an inflated sense of its worth. For that matter, now, almost a month later, the car is still unsold. I know because I pass it by daily.

Within the first week, they also test-drove a rebuilt 1996(?) Toyota Corolla. I was not crazy about the rebuilt idea and Mr. Philately approached the whole thing cautiously. He talked to the insurance agent. He talked to the service department that does the maintenance on our cars. He researched on the internet. And then, when he was ready to make an offer, he discovered the car had been sold.

And then, nothing. He was busy. He was running a stamp show. He was working late. He was driving up to take Kat to camp. He was going to American Players� Theater for my birthday. I began to wonder whether he would get to this project in time. I reassessed and got involved.

I decided to begin researching cars in our price range. He had specified what he thought he wanted and I suspected it did not really exist. I went to cars.com. I put in our price range and carefully researched the reliability of most of the cars I was seeing that seemed the right size and roughly the right mileage (which translated means under 100,000 miles.) I started giving him print-outs of cars in a 80-mile radius and of reliability ratings. I waited for him to figure out that there were cars out there but not exactly what he wanted.

And today I pushed. I suggested that we go car-shopping. I suggested we go car-shopping together. I waited through a bagel lunch and a trip to the post office. We went to a place that had had several cars of the type he thought he wanted. They only had one older Toyota left with reasonable mileage. It looked okay. But it did not drive okay. The steering wheel shimmied. The car pulled hard to the left (or at least I think it was the left. It was off to the driver�s side.) We knew the answer was no.

That step was not so very bold. It was the next step that was breathtaking. We went up to another dealership and, at my suggestion, we just told him generally what we were looking for without specifying brands of cars. We wanted a car for a 17 year old that was not better than the 1999 Toyota Corolla that we already had, that was an automatic, that had not more than 100,000 miles on it, that seemed reliable, and that was not more than $5000. We looked at Sunfires (which I had never heard of before), some Malibus, a really terrible Dodge Stratus with blistering paint and an obvious belt problem, and, for reasons I do not understand, a Taurus wagon that seemed to be whispering to Mr. Philately even while he knew it was not what he was looking for. (A sharp black Mercury Cougar whispered to him too but at least I knew what that was all about.)

Just when I thought Mr. Philately was ready to walk away, I suggested that we really look at the Malibus. We test-drove one and he liked it. I test-drove it and I liked it. It seemed in our range. The internet dubbed it reasonably reliable. It was a 1999 and it only had 58,000 miles on it. It was green, which was not okay with the salesman, but was okay with me and with Mr. Philately. Mr. Philately announced what he would be willing to buy it for. The salesman came back with another number. Mr. Philately was ready to walk. The salesman came back with Mr. Philately�s number.

And there we were. We are picking the car up on Wednesday and I think we got a reasonable deal. They can�t have taken us on the financing or trade-in because there is no financing or trade-in. There was no long-drawn out, painful process and there was no fight.

Now what will we do for sport?

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