A lesbian car? Now there was a new concept

I love my car, and I think she loves me too. You know how you get that feeling of benevolent intention, even from a machine? Well, it’s like that – we get along well. She’s a 1998, sage green, Subaru Outback. “Casual understated elegance” is her style too.

I bought a her in 2007 from a 62  year old “old maid” schoolteacher. After all those years alone, she had finally found the right guy and was getting married for the very first time. Don’t you love it? For me, almost ten years single at the time, it seemed like a good omen. Even though I’d pretty much given up on the man thing. In fact, I’d decided to close up shop, sell my house in Richmond, and move to the beautiful mountains of Virginia to paint, single and happy on the side of a mountain somewhere. But, you know how it is, hope does indeed spring eternal.

Anyway, not being a car person by nature, I had been paying attention, knowing I would soon be in need of a “new” car. I had good input about Subaru’s in general, and Outbacks in particular, but one nugget of information about this particular make and model stood out. My former boyfriend’s twenty something year old daughter, had dismissed his suggestion to buy one with a violent “No way! Every one knows that’s a lesbian car!”

A lesbian car? Now there was a new concept. But hard to forget.

So, as fate would have it, on the eve of my single forever mountain adventure, I was presented with the perfect car for the job – a Subaru Outback. Of course I got the joke, and my then senior in high school daughter and I had a good laugh. “Well, you have to admit it’s sort of fitting. And, if it’s true, it probably means it’s a really good car!” Done deal. I bought “her” ( that’s how I knew she was female).

The next year when Blair went to college, she called all excited, she couldn’t wait to tell me the news. The speaker during her freshman orientation was talking to them about making premature judgments about all the new people they would be meeting. “For example, I drive a Subaru Outback and, as every one knows it’s the official National Lesbian Car. As it happens, I AM a lesbian, but, you never know, you can’t always judge a book by it’s cover.” Ah-Ha!

So now it was official. I was a proud owner of the National Lesbian Car of America.

A couple of months later, I arrive in Maine, and literally, everywhere I look, I see Subaru Outbacks. I have to look twice in parking lots, checking for my Va. plates, for fear of getting in someone else’s identical car. This place is wall to wall Outbacks. Driving a Subaru Outback in Maine, is the equivalent of wearing a plaid skirt and white collared blouse at Catholic School. I fit right in.

So, despite the fact that it’s all wheel drive, holds a lot of work type stuff, and is reasonably priced – all of which makes it a great car for Maine, could it also be an indicator of of a skewed demographic? The answer is Yes. I’ve seen more happy, healthy, female couples cruising around Maine, than I have anywhere else in such concentration. I can only conclude that Maine is to lesbians, what San Francisco is to gay men. There’s something about the lifestyle that suits them to a tee.

Me too girls.

So here I am in my insulated rubber boots, old work pants, and the rest of my collection of relaxed, practical (if not figure flattering) attire, driving my very own nationally approved vehicle. I love my Subaru, and she loves me.

FOOTNOTE: Of course, not ALL of these multiple Maine Outbacks are owned by down to earth females. But when I told my funny Outback story to Casey, who helps us here on the farm, he said, “What? My dad drives a Subaru Outback!” Now I’ve met Casey’s Dad, he’s a big, burly, generations old Mainer, who probably wouldn’t know a female/female if he ran over one with his very own Outback. However, at last report, he had suddenly decided he needed a different car, and had put his trusty Outback up for sale. Could it be…?

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