Used car shopping is like being in a bad relationship, where you just sit there, letting yourself be lied to again and again.
Honey, why you are so late every night from work?
There was a problem with a file.
So you had to stay until 4 am?
Honey, why do you smell like perfume?
That's not perfume. A guy farted on the train.
Honey, why is that woman in my bed?
That's not a woman. You're imagining things.
Yesterday, we found a car in our price range, whatever the hell that means. Meaning we can initially afford this clunker, but when it breaks in two months, we'll wish we bought the newer more expensive car. So, which one do we buy? One we can't afford now? Or one we can't afford later?
So this car we found was a Toyota, which last forever, apparently, and it looked a little beat up-maybe the runt of the litter, but still a TOYOTA. This word Toyota meaning reliable was infiltrated into my brain when I was the Manchurian Candidate and I can't get it out.
Why's it so worn in? Ben asked.
(I was pretending I didn't notice the cracked leather interior, the almost totally faded gloss on the paint. I was telling myself this is what a ten year old car looked like. I was telling myself this car is cool; I want this car-But remember, I haven't bought anything for 36 days at this point-I'm a little hungry)
The salesman looks at the car "Just a little wear and tear."
Ben's minorly incredulous. "A little?"
The guy is looking at me. I'm the sucker. He's telepathically sending me the message "Make your husband want this car."
All I need to do to make Ben want a car is show him how happy it makes me.
Ben and I are not good car buyers. We're not.Those of you who know me, don't even know why I bother mentioning that. It's like "We know, Amy!" Not a sane one in the pair. I get excited. He gets excited that I'm excited.
If I say "I have a good feeling about this car," it means nothing.
If he says "I trust this guy," again, nothing.
All our facilities are shut off when we buy cars. We get really stupid.
You remember that Seinfeld where Jerry, Elaine and George stop having sex and it makes Elaine stupid and George really smart? And you can tell when George started having sex again because he gets really dumb. That's me and Ben. Smart most the time, dumb with cars. And we know the other one is stupid, but they're all we got, so we still count on them for advice. But even looking at the other one for advice makes us laugh, cause we've got enough brain matter on other issues that leaks in and says 'Don't listen to dumb dumb.'
"Shit," I say to him, paying attention to the non-dormant brain matter that crossed the border and is trying to save us. "Maybe we need a third person here."
The car salesman, three weeks on the job, let us take the car for a couple hours to get checked out. We bring it home, have lunch.
The neighborhood kid, a clean freak, runs up to the car and says "Euuu. Why is it so scratchy?" His mom apologizes. I say, "That's okay, we don't own it yet." She shakes her head at the car too, says "It doesn't look like you." I think 'Me? Who am I? How does anyone know what I look like?' I think 'She thinks I'm a hippie, but I'm not. I'm Kojak. I'm Starsky and Hutch. This car is me.' The neighbor kid runs his hand on the dash and says 'It's dirty. Why so dirty?" I'm mad now. I yell, "Why aren't you wearing any shoes, kid? Am I supposed to listen to someone who doesn't wear shoes?"
As his mom drags him away, me and Ben drive to a car repair shop we found in the yellow pages. Once, I went to a hair salon I found in the yellow pages and when the stylist asked me how I found out about him and I said 'the Yellow Pages' he laughed and said, "People actually use those?" It was a running joke in the salon years after I started going there. They looked at me like someone raised by wolves, like didn't I know any people to ask? Who goes to places, unreferred?
The repair ship, incidentally, is Mike, a sweet guy who lives in Crystal Lake with his mother and son. The shop is a store front body shop and Mike says he can't look at electrical but the body is in pretty bad shape.
"Why's it so worn out?" He asks.
We shrug.
"It's old," I say.
"Like from horse and buggy times." Mike is a man who cracks himself up. Good for him. Mike feels sorry for us. We can tell. We look down, so he can't tell how stupid we are. If we don't maintain eye contact, maybe he'll think it's a fluke we're this dumb. Like this is a once in a lifetime slip for us. We know better.
"How much are they charging you?" He asks.
"Five thou."
Mike laughs.
He points out why not five thou. The trunk, beneath the carpet is filled with water. The drivers door does not entirely close. There is so much body work in the trunk, the trunks interior could be displayed in the MOMA. The leather interior, "though leather is nice, I get that," says Mike, is at the end of it's life.
The car, it turns out, is not looking so much for a proper owner, as a proper burial.
The cloth top, though cool, was added later, after factory, by God knows who, with money to burn. In between adding the fabric top, the car was either moonlighting as a convertible or lived in New Orleans during Katrina; No, that is not normal wear and tear for a non-convertibles interior, unless the previous owner was a sunfish.
"Don't worry," says Mike. "I got a car I'm currently selling. And it's in such good shape because I drive my son in it and my son is my life. We both look at each other, sharing a dollop of brain matter and communally think "Must be a good car. He obviously loves his son." And like two nimrods who refuse to drive home when the party is over, we go into Mikes shop and ogle his 2000 Jeep Laredo with 120,000 miles.
Ben looks at me.
"I love it," I say.
"Me too," he says. Then he whispers, "But it makes me nervous he works in a body shop."
"I trust him," I tell Ben.
"Me too," Ben says.
And the morons marched on. Stay tuned.
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