Getting pulled over by the cops at 3am after you’ve left a party is never fun. Its actually quite a soil-your-freaking-pants experience. I try to avoid that set of circumstances at all times. Yet there I was, sitting on the side of Northwest Radial Hwy on Friday night/Saturday morning. Nice, huh?

I’d been at a party at a buddy of mine’s house, where over the course of six hours I consumed enough beer to have a sufficiently good time, but not enough to be illegally driving. And at 3, as the party was clearing out, I took off, turning down an offer to crash on the floor. With my new vehicle exactly one week old, I would not have turned down the offer if I was at all impaired for driving. Not that I would have otherwise, but you get the point — risk-averse was I, with new $21000 wheels. And I left.

About six blocks from Gilby’s house, a cop pulled up behind me. I was at the intersection of Fort and Northwest Radial, changed lanes to turn, and he did the same. After we turned, the cherries came on, and I was busted.

I pulled over immediately, confident that there was nothing I could be in trouble for. Wasn’t speeding, had signaled properly, all lights were functional (as it was a new vehicle, after all!), and I wasn’t drunk. As soon as the cop talked to me for a few moments, he knew that. A perfectly coherent conversation with a guy who smells of Axe but nothing else, and has eyes that are alert, led him to never question my sobriety for a second. But there was another problem.

Long before I’d decided to trade in The Colorado, I ordered a MacBook. I wanted the black version, suped up with a big hard drive and more memory. I ordered it, and because of their popularity, it sat on back order for a while. During this time, I bought a Honda Civic EX.

The day I drove it off the lot, Apple shipped my MacBook. Two huge purchases in one day. Don’t think my bank didn’t get a kick out of that. Their fraud protection people were all over it, assuming that because I’d written a down-payment check to Superior Honda AND bought an expensive notebook that surely I was the victim of some fraud. Not so much, I told them.

But the sucky thing is, I don’t make big purchases like this all that often, and I like to savor them, maybe get a good story or two out of it that I can relate here. But the day I drove my new car, working title Gandalf the Gray, both for its color and its swift stealthy badassness, to work the first time, my MacBook arrived at 10:30 am on the FedEx truck.

So my excitement over the car subsided, and my interest in checking out the Intel Core Duo power inside my new Mac piqued. What a shame. But it is what it is. Who am I kidding? Its awesome! And the only shame is you had to wait three days to read about the MacBook! You bet.

After using the MacBook for a couple three days, I have two comments:

My new car has been the talk of the office. As I write this after volleyball on Tuesday, I can tell you — people don’t know what it is at first, so they gawk. And then when they see its a Honda, they can’t believe it. Hondas have always been known as extremely reliable, durable vehicles with conservative designs. Cars you can drive for 300,000 miles, cars that look mature in terms of styling and features.

Then you have the Civic, which for years and years has been an ultra-reliable entry level economy car. Butt ugly in the 1980s, the Civic became a staple of the roadway nonetheless. Its design in the 1990s was more streamlined, but its uninspiring shape and conservative lines screamed “boring family car”. I need something a little flashier, a little more macho, something more than just a utilitarian “gets me there and back” kind of ride.

So, understandably, based on their preconceived notions, nobody can quite believe that thing in the parking lot is a Honda. The conversations with the guys have all been, “Wow, that’s a sweet ride. And it gets 40MPG? Damn.”

That’s all good. A car that looks good, drives good, and gets great gas mileage? That’s a winner if I ever seen one.

I will choose to ignore the comments from some of the women in the office, who refer to it as “that cute little car”. If I have to emblazon the thing with dragons shooting fire, dammit, my car will not be described as cute again.

After I nearly threw up in my mouth hearing my prized new car described in such a heretical manner, a couple of the guys reassured me. It still gets 40MPG, it still goes really fast, its OK. One of them said he’d drive anything that got that kind of mileage, even an old rust bucket Geo Metro. So I suppose if the tradeoff for a sweet ride that gets bitchin’ gas mileage is snide remarks about its cuteness from women, I’ll deal with it. Dragons breathing fire or no.

Incidentally, there’s nothing wrong with a cute little car, don’t get me wrong. But what you call “cute” I call “bitchin”, so its a difference in semantics, really.

You bet.

As I watched The Colorado drive off into the distance, I sat in my new car and it was kinda sad. But only for a minute. You must understand, I overly-dramatized the demise of The Colorado yesterday for dramatic effect. And I’d just seen, for the 40th time, the original Miami Vice 2-hour pilot, which has that great scene where Sonny pulls the car over on the way to chase Calderone just to call his ex-wife from a pay-phone and ask, “What we had…it was real, wasn’t it?” Great dialogue. So I applied some creative license and co-opted it into my story about the end of The Colorado. I assumed people would pick up on the obvious Miami Vice reference. I assumed wrong. People just thought I was weird and talking to my truck.

Disappointing. But we move on nonetheless.

On December 18, 2004, a jet-black pickup entered my life, and in turn, the life of my readers. For this wasn’t just any pickup truck, it was a Chevrolet Colorado Z71 4X4. Not just any Chevy Colorado. The Colorado.

My brother and I always name our cars. My first car, the Buick Skyhawk, was “Captain” Skyhawk like the Nintendo game. The hunter green Skylark I drove next was The Green Monster. Not to be confused with The Green Hornet, the green minivan with only one working door my brother drove. My Grand Am GT was known as The White Shadow (both because the car was white, and because the show of the same name is really really badass).

Well, when I brought home the truck, it oozed so much awesomeness, it was clear it wasn’t just another vehicle, nor just another Chevy Colorado. It was the definitive version of the truck. The piece de resistance of Detroit. The Colorado.

Through trips to Kansas City, Minneapolis twice, Des Moines numerous times, and Lincoln many many more times, it treated me very well. And I loved it back, washing it once a week and always polishing the chrome, treating the leather seats, and keeping it in tip-top condition. I installed after-market accessories to make it even more awesome. It was the most well-cared for pickup truck in the world, befitting its stature as The Colorado.