My son has fallen for a Tesla Model X. It was love at first sight.
儿子爱上了一辆特斯拉“Model X”。几乎是一见钟情。
He was walking through an underground carpark in Chengdu with me, my wife and my wife’s friend. It was the friend who owned the car, the Tesla Model X, and when she opened its back doors, the sight of them lifting like a pair of wings, revealing the spacious interior, flooded my son’s imagination.
那天，他走在成都的一个地下停车场里，和他在一起的是我，我的妻子和我妻子的一个朋友。这位朋友有一辆特斯拉Model X。而当她打开这辆车，车后门像一对翅膀一样升起，露出宽敞的内部空间时，儿子眼睛放光，浮想联翩。
“Tesla Model X,” he said. “Wow…”
“特斯拉Model X，”他不住地惊叹，“哇！”
This happened just over a month ago.He has not been the same since. Before our visit to China this summer, if you had asked my son what kind of car he wanted when he grew up, he would have said, “I want a red car” or “I want a blue car”.
自那以后，他就变得不一样了。今年夏天我们回中国之前，如果问我儿子，长大后想要一辆什么样的车，他会回答，“我想要一辆红色的汽车”或“我想要一辆蓝色的汽车”。
Not anymore.Now it’s: “I want a Tesla. I want a Tesla Model X. Daddy, can we get a Tesla Model X?”He knows the makes and models of many cars now - and as we drive along the streets of our city in England, he points them out.“A Mazda! A Ford! A Toyota!”
现在，他会说：“我想要一辆特斯拉。我想要一辆特斯拉Model X。爸爸，我们可以买一辆特斯拉Model X吗？”现在，他知道很多汽车的品牌和型号了，当我们沿着我们所在的英国城市的街道行驶时，他会一一指认。“马自达！福特！一辆丰田！”
And of course: “Daddy! A Tesla!”
当然还有：“爸爸！是一辆特斯拉！”
He has been keeping count of the number of Teslas he has seen since we returned to England in mid-August.So far, he has seen 30.
从八月中旬我们回到英国，他一直在计算见过的特斯拉的数量。目前为止，整整有30辆。
When I was a boy, every few years my dad would trade in our car for a new one, and when he was away in a garage buying the car I would stand outside the house, in the driveway. I couldn’t wait to see the new car. Or maybe what I should say is: I couldn’t wait to smell the new car.
当我还是个小孩时候，每隔几年，我爸就会把旧车卖掉去换新车。每当他去买车，我会守在房子外面的车道上，迫不及待地想看到新车。或者应该这样说：我迫不及待地想闻闻新车的味道。
All new cars had the same pleasant smell - the same combination of volatile organic compounds, toxic chemicals. That new car smell was more than pleasant, it was addictive. It was from the glue which held the interior’s various pieces of plastic together.
所有新车都有同样令人愉悦的气味——挥发性有机化合物和有毒化学物质的结合，这种气味不仅令人愉悦，而且令人上瘾。这气味就像胶水一样把车内部的各种塑料部分聚合在了一起。
Our own car, no longer new and long free of those intoxicating gluey vapours, is an 18-year-old, beaten-up, well-travelled Nissan Tiida. It was manufactured in Japan in 2008 and we bought it second-hand in Dublin in 2016.
我们家开的的车早就已经不是新车了，早没了那些令人陶醉的粘糊糊的味道。它是一辆有18年车龄、破旧的、开了很多里数的日产骐达，2008年产自日本。2016年，我们在都柏林的一家二手车行买下了她。
My wife, who has a talent for naming things, decided to call the car Miko.A few months later, our son was born. When we were taking him home from the hospital I had to put him in the car seat. I remember feeling very aware, as I closed the latch on his seatbelt and then drove slowly through Dublin, that my main job in life now was to keep this tiny person alive.
我那善于给东西命名的妻子给车取名“美子（Miko）”。几个月后，儿子出生了。我们把他放在汽车儿童座椅上，从医院回家。我还记得，当我给他扣上安全带，缓慢驶过都柏林时，突然清楚地意识到，此后，我的生活重心就是让这个小家伙活着。
A year later we were moving to England and I filled every available square inch of the car’s space with our belongings and took the ferry from Dublin before driving from Wales, across England, to our new home. Miko has been around.
一年后，我们搬到了英国。我把车里的每一寸可用的空间都装满了东西，开车从都柏林上渡轮，再经威尔士，穿过英格兰，最终到达新家。“美子”一直陪在我们身边。
But one night in August 2018, three days after we had arrived in England, thieves smashed open the passenger side window, tried to steal the car, and when that failed they ripped out the stereo, leaving a gaping hole in Miko’s dashboard.
2018年8月的一个晚上，也就是我们抵达英格兰的第三天，有小偷砸碎了副驾驶座的侧窗玻璃，试图偷车，失败后，他橇走了音响系统，在“美子”的仪表板上留下了一个大洞。
“Poor Miko…”my wife says now, when she sits in the car.
“可怜的'美子’……”现在，妻子坐到车里到时候总会叹息。
Poor Miko is probably not going to last much longer. She cannot be sold now or traded in for another car. She is too damaged for that. So we will drive her until she finally gives up and a mechanic pronounces her engine is dead.
可怜的“美子”可能坚持不了多久了，她已经没办法再次出售，或者以旧换新，她太残破了。因此我们会一直开着她，直到汽修工宣布她的引擎没办法再工作。
“Last night,”my son says, “I had a dream. I was thinking of a car and then I could take the car from inside my head and put it out on the road and we drove the car across the longest bridge in the world. It was a Tesla.”
“昨晚我做了一个梦。”儿子告诉我，“我脑海里出现了一辆车，我把它从我脑子里拿了出来，放在了路上，我们开着这辆车穿过了世界上最长的桥梁。那是一辆特斯拉。”
