I went to see this truck, an ’03 Toyota Tacoma, in New Hampshire today.  The dealer let me take it back to Boston for a few hours to have it checked out by my family mechanic, Ed Baker.  Turns out the previous owner hadn’t kept up with maintenance, so it’ll need some stuff in the near future, expensive stuff – a timing belt, a new set of tires, and a little bodywork.  Those add-ons pushed the truck, which was already in the upper reaches of what I could pay,  squarely out of my range.

Out of curiousity, I asked Ed if he thought it was worth the money, if he thought I could find something better with the same price tag.

“Well, I’m not sure you could,” he said. “And I’m not condemning this one. But I wouldn’t jump at it either.”

And so the search continues.  I drove back north slowly and carefully, frustrated and resigned and calm. As the warm afternoon dripped away, I returned to square one.

I’ve been looking for a few months now, and it’s been complicated by a couple of things, primarily by my stubborn devotion to Toyota, a quality which I appear to share with the entire Eastern seaboard.  Toyota trucks are durable and desirable and hold their value, so even older models with high mileage are pricey.  And with the wonky economy, fewer and fewer people are trading in solid vehicles, particularly work vehicles, just because they want something shinier, so there are less options out there for us low-rent scavengers to squabble over.

Working in New York, I drove what may have been the world’s most ridiculous box truck.  The farm had two, a nice Mitsubishi Fuso that went into Brooklyn, and the Lariat, which puttered around the farm and went to Westhampton once a week in the summer.  When the Lariat wasn’t in motion, it was hooked up to a battery charger, or the hood was up and the battery was entirely disconnected.

Starting the Lariat required at least two people, sometimes three, working in concert.  One would sit in the cab and turn the key.  Another would stand on a crate by the open hood and hold a piece of metal (usually a harvesting knife) across the spark plugs.  Finally, on rough days, a third person would spray ether into the air filter.  This was bad for the engine but usually did the trick.

Basically, the Lariat was a money pit. It ate batteries, it ate time, it ate patience, but more than that it gobbled cash.

I’m not saying I need something snazzy. The first truck I ever drove deliveries in, a two-tone GMC dinosaur, was perfect in so many ways. The brakes were a little soft and the radio was awful, but it was steady and predictable and I loved it.

Buying a truck is my first big investment, exciting and scary and achingly slow. I am desperate to do it exactly right. I’m tired of the anxiety, of used car salesmen, of waiting for the future to arrive, but I guess these things take time. I know how to wait.