When, oh when will it be here?

When I was a kid, I ordered one of those billion-piece plastic army man sets from the back of a comic book. You know, the ones that came with 24 infantrymen, 18 bazooka men, 4 mortar cannons, 2 field nurses, 14 grenade throwers, 2 jeeps, etc. etc. The day after I sent the slip and my mother's check for $1.98 to Plast-o-Riffic Incorporated, I began watching my mailbox like a hawk eyes a mouse hole. Every day for somewhere between six and eight weeks, I would wake up, assuming that somehow my Army Man Set had arrived during the night, perhaps carried in by a stork or some other form of silent flying machine. Then, after rushing outside and finding no brown package, I would humbly make my way back inside, broken hearted.

When the set finally arrived, I couldn't have been a happier little boy. I spent approximately every waking minute of the next two weeks fiddling with those army men. I would put a few in my pocket and take them to school, organizing small-scale invasions on the lunch table, I would leave six or eight set up on my desk at home, and on a daily basis, I would slowly maneuver them into striking position above the army-man sized foxhole I had constructed on my floor. The army men would come to the grocery store with me, onto the dinner table and occasionally they would even find their way into the bathroom.

Every moment I spent waiting for the army men to arrive was rewarded with weeks and weeks of complete happiness and bliss. I never waited for anything with as much eagerness and alacrity in my entire life as I did for those army men. Until last year.

Upon purchasing my first car, I slowly became completely obsessed and possessed with the automobile. Foreign cars were the center of my obsession, but my delight in cars reached out and touched all branches of the automobile world. Eventually, those around me picked up on my fascination, and my girlfriend was gloriously kind enough to purchase me a subscription to Automobile Magazine.

The first few issues delighted me, and I slowly grew accustomed to the format of the magazine—the letters in the beginning, the editorials towards the middle, the frequent snapshots of what kind of concept vehicles were being shown around the world, the staff’s fondness of the BMW, and of course, the occasional fold-out poster.

The magazine itself, as a piece of printed media, is photographed, arranged, and printed in a fantastically neat, tidy, and simple-to-understand manner. The photographs are always of extremely high quality, the test is easy on the eyes, and the pages on which everything is printed are a delight to turn.

The writing is clear, but not always concise. However, in the world of specialized journalism, it is not always necessary to be concise. While not always concise, the writing always arrives at a thoughtful, meaningful, and well-put conclusion. After reading the magazine three or four times, it becomes second nature to know what the author is going to say next, and it all just seems to make sense.

Though sometimes advertisements are annoying, and the “special advertising sections” inserted by (9 times out of 10) American car manufacturers can be tiresome, nearly all of the ads are relevant, and sometimes even useful.

The customer service that I’ve experienced is outstanding. In the first few months of my subscription, I did not receive one of the issues, and when four months later, I decided to call the customer service department and see if something could be done. The woman I spoke with was exceedingly friendly, and offered to either extend my subscription by a month, or re-send the issue I had missed, EVEN THOUGH their records showed that they had shipped the issue to me.

So each month now, I crouch in front of my post office box, fingers literally crossed, hoping, praying that my new issue of Automobile Magazine will be folded up inside. Will there be a poster? Will they give me a sneak preview of the new [insert favorite car here]? Just how DOES the new BMW stack up against its competitors? When will it be here? Oh when, oh when will it be here?