It is the 13th of March, 2025. I am about to meet two cars.

I first take a train down to Burlington, and meet a cute red Mazda3. She has high-tech features, a wonderful-feeling steering, barely worn-in interior, and all-wheel-drive. The dealership lets me drive her around for about 30 minutes on my own, and I have plenty of time to think about what I liked and what I didn’t. I don’t make much headway.

Then I take the bus down to St Catherines, and meet a handsome grey Acura ILX. He looks striking in the sun, runs like hell when I step on the gas, feels a little lighter on the steering but very easy to push hard. The old salesman who’s sitting next to me makes slightly racist comments about me that I try to ignore as I focus on trying to figure out why the hell the car was so cheap.

I call up my friend boldblazer on the bus back home, and try to explain to her, my extremely-not-a-car-girl friend, what I think about the two cars. I really like both of them, so it comes down to weighing the pros and cons. The Mazda has a newer platform, better tech, a prettier color, and it’s a more popular car that’s likely easier to get parts and information for. The Acura, well, it goes faster, the rear seats are slightly more comfortable, and it’s cheaper. I try to find more reasons, but can’t verbalize any. I’m stretching.

I call my dad and talk to him about it. He’s a car guy too, and talking through it with him makes it decently clear that there are more positives about the Mazda than the Acura. I call the Mazda dealer and tell him to let me know how to put down a deposit.

I have made a decision. I have done an irreversible thing, committed to buying a car. It is done, I can stop thinking about it now.

I can’t stop thinking about it.

I sleep on it. I wake up next morning, still unable to stop thinking about it. I have more important things to attend to—in particular, a swollen lip—so I go to a nearby walk-in clinic. In the waiting room, I can’t stop thinking. Talking to the doctor, I can’t stop thinking. On the streetcar back home, I can’t stop thinking. As I get off at my stop and start walking home, I call my dad again.

“My head agrees with you, but my heart won’t listen,” I tell him. He smiles and nods. “Yeah, I could tell.”

I renege on the Mazda3, call up the slightly racist guy in St Catherines, and commit to buying the Acura ILX.

On the 29th of March, 2025, I pick up my new Acura ILX, accompanied by Blackberry, another good friend of mine.

During pre-purchase inspection, I see a few marks on the car that I either did not notice previously, or weren’t there until recently. I panic, and nearly walk off. Blackberry walks me over to a nearby Tim Hortons and calms me down. As I sip the coffee, I decide it’s for the best that the car came pre-scratched. That way, I don’t have to worry too much about putting on new ones. Blackberry helps me come to terms with this, and I appreciate her being there a lot.

Blackberry lives in another city, so I drop her off before going home. On the way there, we visit a temple. Hindu customs dictate that one is supposed to crack a coconut in front of a new car, pour coconut water along all four wheels, pray a bit, and then drive the car forward (very important that it is not reversed immediately after this). I’m not really religious, but my family is, so I perform the ritual for their satisfaction.

I drive back home in pouring rain and park the car in the parking lot of my building. As I’m leaving the lot to go back home after a long day, I turn back and look at the car. I’ve decided to call him neutrino—the little neutral (grey) one—and he’s perfect.

I collect computers, especially little laptops. I’ve always wanted a GPD Pocket, but they’ve always been either too expensive or too far. Thanks to neutrino, distances matter less now. I snag a great deal on a GPD Pocket 1 in Woodstock, Ontario, a hundred and forty kilometers away. I also have a pretty solid chicken schnitzel at a nearby Balkan restaurant.

I’m sitting in the restaurant facing the parking lot, and I keep glancing at him.

A dating app finally pulls through, and I am matched with Acrididae, one of the coolest people I’ve met. I go and meet them in Barrie where they live, a hundred kilometers north. Easy peasy. I drive up Highway 400 at speeds that I am no longer willing to admit, and for the first time, rev the engine out all the way. It sounds like electric guitar.

The date goes well. I can’t wait to see them again.

Picking a place almost at random, I decide to drive to Owen Sound, where I visit their fantastic Marine & Rail Museum. On my way there, as I’m blasting Eurobeat, I see flashing red and blue lights in the rearview mirror.

I am pulled over for speeding. I drive back listening to quieter, more reflective music.

I drive over to Blackberry’s place. She’s moving to a new, bigger apartment. It takes two trips back and forth with the back seat and trunk full of stuff to have all her things moved to the new place. I am less surprised at how much neutrino can fit than I probably should be. I still have the new car owner hubris.

boldblazer and I have a tradition of calling each other and chatting while we do things. One day, I receive a call from her while I’m driving. I tell her where I’m going, and what I’m seeing along the way. She pulls out Google Maps and pinpoints my location live, just from the context clues. Then, out of the blue, she says, “Oh god, ew.” She’s just looked me up on a federal electoral riding map and realized that I’m travelling through the territory of a particularly reviled MP. Oops.

We have many, many such calls across many, many such drives. Eventually, she starts being able to pick out the hum of the engine and tell whether or not I’m driving as soon as I pick up. neutrino has a fan on the other side of the country.

What even is Windsor famous for? Windsor-style pizza? Sure, that’s a decent enough excuse to drive over three hundred and sixty kilometers one way. The drive is the reason anyway. I have a blast shooting down the 401, stopping again in Woodstock for a coffee. I find one of my favorite coffee places in Ontario, somehow. Early Bird Coffee, if you’re ever there. The pizza was pretty good too.

On my way back, I can tell I am tired. The thought of driving while drowsy mildly terrifies me, so I pull over, buy and down a Monster energy drink, and try to get back home before that wears off.

I’ve identified a gap in my furniture needs, and it can be filled with an IKEA Kallax. A new one is kinda expensive, but I find a good deal on one used. I drive down to pick it up, because obviously neutrino can handle a little cupboard.

I show up at the pickup point. On seeing the size of my car, the Kallax owner’s face visibly blanches.

We try to shove the Kallax into the trunk, won’t fit. I drop the rear seats, won’t fit because the opening between the trunk and the passenger area is too small. I push the seats back up and try to shove it onto the rear seat, won’t fit because the car isn’t wide enough.

I admit defeat, call an Uber XL to shove the Kallax into, and sheepishly follow it home in neutrino. I’ve now spent almost as much money as buying one new. The new car owner hubris is gone.

The first few dates with Acrididae have gone incredibly well, and I have an idea for what to do next. I want to go to Pelee Island, the southernmost inhabited part of Canada, in the middle of Lake Erie. Not a very conventional spot for tourism, but somehow, they say yes.

I stay over at their place, and we leave from there at 4 AM. I drive neutrino almost all the way down to Windsor again on the 401, humming along to music as my copilot catches up on sleep. A ferry takes the three of us, neutrino included, to the island. We hang out on the island all day. We drive neutrino on extremely bad roads, with Acrididae cringing every time they’re driving and a little pebble hits the paintwork. Not to worry, I tell them. The car came pre-scratched.

Eventually, we ferry back to the mainland and drive back home, making it back to their place by 10 PM, and mine before midnight. I quite literally fall into my bed, going to sleep after the best day I’ve ever had.

I am invited to Blackberry’s place for New Year’s Eve. On my way there, I’m supposed to pick up two other friends of ours, a couple, and on my way back I’m supposed to drop the couple off to a different place in Blackberry’s city.

There is a snowstorm on the highway. I drive gingerly, feeling the front wheels slip as I accelerate and the ABS kick in as I brake. We stop at the Canadian Tire to pick up a shovel for all the snow that will inevitably pile up on neutrino while we celebrate the new year. We end up finding indoor parking, but it’s still nice to have.

On my way back, I stop at a gas station and grab a Monster, and try to get home before that wears off.

It’s my birthday! It’s also a Monday, which means I should really be working. But I work remotely, so I can work from wherever I want! Say, for instance, a random café south of Belleville, Ontario.

I head out in the morning. There is a snowstorm on the 401. I brave my way through it. The visibility is lower and the road is more slippery than any snow I’ve seen before. I get a low wiper fluid warning light—I’ll have to refill it soon. As I take the exit to the regional road I’d need to take the rest of the way, I notice that the car isn’t steering onto the exit ramp the way I’d like it to. I turn the wheel more. It doesn’t help as much as I expect. I’m understeering. I brake. The ABS kicks in. I slow down, not fast enough, and head directly into a snow bank.

I calmly back my car out, take the exit, and head to a nearby gas station to refill my wiper fluid. As I get out of the car, the shock of having technically been in an accident sets in. I would later get neutrino checked, and thankfully there would be no injuries to either him or me.

Afraid to go further, I end up working from Lola Café in nearby Brighton instead. I grab some of their merch to commemorate my birthday. I drink some diner coffee while neutrino sips on wiper fluid. When I get back home, I hug his steering wheel. I’m sorry, and thankful.

I’m driving a Nissan Sentra, with boldblazer in the passenger seat. We’re chatting as I drive, just like we would on the phone, while boldblazer snaps pictures of the scenery for my parents’ benefit.

I’m on my way from Vancouver, British Columbia, to Whistler. I’m going there via the Sea to Sky highway, an absolutely gorgeous sight and a delightfully twisty road. I chuck the car into bends, race it up hills and coast it down valleys. It responds to my wishes with rental car neutrality. I have a great time, and this is the best road I’ve ever driven.

I wish that neutrino were here to see it with me.

I’ve driven a few cars since I got neutrino, not just the Sentra. A Kia Forte, a Honda Civic, a Toyota Camry, a Kia Carnival, a BMW 3 series. They were all pretty good (except the Forte). But somehow nothing compares to neutrino.

I love the non-turbo engine that acts shy at low RPMs and turns into a (small, cute) beast (that’s trying very hard to scare you) when you rev it out. I love the outdated infotainment system that somehow has both a CD drive and Android Auto, and physical buttons for everything except play/pause. I love the weird, funky shape of the car, with the modern Acura front grafted onto what is clearly a middle section designed in 2013, and a rear that seems more in line with a Hyundai. I even love the 17 inch wheels that I initially thought looked too small for the body—turns out, they fill the frame nicely with some good quality winter tires instead of the cheapest all-seasons the dealership could find.

The 2020 Acura ILX is objectively a worse car than the same model year’s Honda Civic Touring or Mazda3 GT. It’s got older tech, worse sound dampening, an engine that drinks more gas, and premium gas at that. But those cars are normal, they’re boring. neutrino is cool and quirky and unique and he’s not like the other compact sedans, and that’s why I love him so much more than I could like any of the others.

As this post goes live, it’s been a year since neutrino’s been mine. He’s been charming, dependable, fun. He’s been through thick and thin with me. I’ve made memories with him that are irreplaceable.

Happy birthday, neutrino. 🩶