You meet the nicest people...

...when you drive a Volvo.

I had taken Boy over to his Scout meeting last night and decided to swing back by the parts store on the way back up the hill just to look around a bit. Finished looking, came out, and saw a bearded fellow get out of a new Honda Accord. As he walked around the front of the car to go in the store, he stopped and asked me how many miles my Volvo had on it. "Uhh, let's see..." I opened the door so I could see the odometer, "Two twenty four, two ninety nine."

"I've had several--the last two I had, one had 265,000, and the other had 300 and something."

And thus began a most pleasant conversation that probably lasted twenty minutes as we mutually extolled the anchor-like reliability of the stolid Swede.

(Of course, I would have been even happier if he'd looked like a member of the Swedish Bikini Team, but I suspect that might be asking a bit much.)