Michael Kelly does without... his car.
Mrs Kelly and I both drive old cars, which is terribly unsporting in keep-up-with-the-Joneses Ireland. I have a thing about car loans, and when I am sitting in traffic next to a gleaming luxury car I assuage my envy by thinking about the size of the loan its driver needed to pay for it.
There's a complexity at the heart of our longing for flashy cars. I give out about the environmental impact of SUVs but can't help coveting them ever so slightly. Why does your head say Prius while your heart says Hummer?
My car is a 1999 BMW, a tank of a car with a two-litre engine that I persuaded myself I needed because I was commuting to Cork from Waterford a few days a week in my old job. It will be safer, driving a big car, I told myself. Which is statistically true but not the whole story. In reality a BMW is a statement about affluence. A 1999 BMW is a statement about affluence on a budget.
Mrs Kelly's car is a 1994 Toyota that I lovingly refer to as "the jalopy". Although not yet a teenager, it could probably, at 12 years old, do with being put out to pasture. As it still performs its basic function of getting her from A to B, however, there is really only one reason to change it - to avoid being seen in a 12-year old car - and Mrs Kelly doesn't go in for stuff like that. Most of the time.
I am embarrassed by my car now. It just doesn't seem to fit with my downsizing. It's a businessman's car. An affluent person's car. And these days I am neither. So, as a dry run for a potential downgrade, I persuaded her to swap for a week. I drove the jalopy while she travelled to work in German luxury. I was horrified to discover that my flashes of luxury-car envy are part of a wider character flaw. I am, in fact, a complete car snob.
I was fine when I was driving. Behind the wheel there is very little difference between the two cars. But then I met someone I knew coming out of a shop in the village. I held back and let the person go rather than approach the car. I was disgusted with myself. Am I really that shallow? Yes, apparently.
We all buy into status symbols on some level, and we are willing to spend lots of money to acquire them. Our clothes, where we live, our house - all are part of a carefully constructed message. What message did I think it would send if I owned up to owning the jalopy?