
Today we enlisted the grandparents to babysit (a first with two kids for them) and we headed to the car dealership to get me a new car. I can't say new car without using the "Price Is Right" announcer voice. It's a NEEWWW CARRRR (imagine me using that voice now if you will). Oh how I love a NEW CAR. Doesn't everyone? The smell of dangerous off-gassing, the gleam off the new wood replica trim, the supple touch of new leather. Mmmmm. Anyhow, we headed to the car dealership after a lengthy Internet search that started, oh...I don't know...two weeks after we picked up the last NEW CAR three years ago. In lieu of whining about the various issues we had with our 'luxury car' because seriously who gives a shit what kind of issues you have with your expensive car (you pompous assholes- it's a recession), I'll just talk about the new, NEW CAR experience. So as I said, we headed off to the dealership. There was some discussion about what we
needed versus what we
wanted. There was talk about options and add-ons and protection plans and on and on... Most importantly was the discussion about the COST, as in, the COST should be LESS than the old one. Being the level-headed, responsible, some might say anal-retentive couple that we are, we agreed on all these points and walked resolutely in to the dealership. We want a NEW CAR, we would say. We want to pay THIS MUCH. We don't want any extras. We want your BEST deal. We won't take NO CRAP from you. The rest of this fantasy plays out like this; we find exactly what we want, no scratch that- we find what we NEED, we negotiate a fair deal, we LOWER our monthly payments, we all skip off into the sunset singing and holding hands.
The reality was more like this. We go in, we don't see the car we want. Wrong color. We agree to test drive a DIFFERENT car. We agree that this car has everything we NEED, everything we AGREED we should have. It has NO extras. We DON'T like it. Nope, we hate it. Can't see ourselves driving it or liking it. We have a new agreement. We NEED extras. We find the car we WANT. We start a painful negotiation process. They give us the price. We don't want to pay THAT much, we want to pay LESS. They can't go THAT low, but they'll throw in a pen if we agree to this HIGH price. Back and forth we go until finally we all feel bad. We AGREE that feeling bad is good for all of us. The car is ours.
We have just bought the most expensive model they offer with all the extras, even the things we don't need or want. But hey, it's not all bad...we did lower our monthly payments. This NEW CAR costs us exactly $15 less a month than the last one. We'll be living large now.
Here's some advice. Don't send us to barter for you.