Well, I thought I knew exactly where it was. I did know exactly where it wasn't. It wasn't where we were driving around looking for it. I had seen the letter S in the address, I swear I did. But, it should have been an N instead. So, we got there, but my counselor was about 15 minutes later than me, so it was fine. So, we had a good meeting. It ran over. Unfortunately, I had told the FP to pick me up an hour after he dropped me off. Which might have been ok if the meeting had started on time. It hadn't. He had gotten tired of waiting and went home to wait for me. So, I texted him when I was done and he picked me up.
We were going to look at cars, but we needed to eat lunch first because we were both starving. We were going to Pompano Beach area, so we thought it would be nice to drive along the beach.
We were wrong.
Well, sure, it was beautiful up there. But I got a horrible case of motion sickness. I had only eaten once the day before, and that was a very small portion. I was about to get a visit from my Aunt Flo. And I sometimes get motion sickness when sitting anywhere in the car other than the driver's seat. So, it was not a pleasant drive.
And there weren't as many restaurants on A1A as we thought there would be. We drove around, until we ended up at some chain restaurant that looked like Joe's Crab Shack. We sat on the patio. In one of those hilarious twists of irony, the booth was one of those rocking booths, where if someone on one side moves, it moves the person on the other side.
Did I ever tell you the FP was a fidgety person? He literally had to use all his will to not move in the booth. So, we weren't expecting much of the food. But actually it was not bad.
So, then after lunch, we had to head to the car dealership. I was not looking forward to a long meandering drive. But the FP suggested that I drive. Which was a very good idea. He searched the dealership on the iphone, and in a stroke of luck it was 5 miles west. So that was nice. And then it was there. And then it was hot, but we were looking at Minis. There didn't seem to be many, until we realized there were more behind where we had parked.
So, then we were talking to a salesman about what we wanted. He asked if we had driven a Mini before, which we had. He went through the inventory to look up the Mini Club"men" on the cheaper side of the list. He pretty much told us about the cars that we had already seen. So, then we just looked at the options with payment and he estimated what monthly payments we could have if we got the pepper white clubman. Which, was ok, but it wasn't exciting to me. I kind of wanted bright white, black or silver. They didn't have a bright white clubman. They did have a bright white countryman, but those were more expensive and bigger.
There was the silver countryman, though. It was a couple thousand more than the other, which was already more than we should spend. But it was silver, with the black bonnet stripes, and the black top, and the black tire rims. The tire rims looked a little too sporty for my taste, but the FP liked them. So, we told the salesman how that's the one we really wanted.
So, we decided to go ahead and do the credit check. In the meantime, he brought the car over to look at. We sat in it. He showed us some of the features. We were impressed before we even sat in it, but once we sat in it, we knew we wanted it.
But it was a lot of money.
But I had been looking and looking. And this was pretty much the car we wanted. Just not really the price we wanted.
So, the salesman went to see how much he could knock off the price. He knocked some off.
This was a good day to get a car. The dog was in daycare. We didn't know if we would be having anymore days off together. The dealership wasn't that far, but if I was going to leave and then decide to come back a few days later, it didn't make sense.
The salesman went to get some paperwork and let us think.
Of course, the FP thought there wasn't even anything to think about. But, he knew how my thought process worked. He figured there was probably no way we were driving out of that dealership separately.
I thought about it.
And then I thought, maybe we should just do it.
I mean, it was pretty much the car we wanted. So, the salesman came back, and we said "let's do it."
So, we started the process. Which wasn't as painful as it could have been, but I still felt ill. Which was part of the reason that I had almost not pulled the trigger. I didn't want to sit there for several hours waiting to drive home our new car.
But I did. It took so long, like it does, that the FP had to leave before me to get to the doggie daycare before it closed.
So, then, the first time I actually drove the car, was when I was driving it out of the lot to go home.
For reals.
For realsies.
I'm sure when the salesman saw us there, he did not expect to sell us a car without us ever even taking it out of the lot.
It's kind of like waiting to have sex until marriage.
Well, I got in the car and drove off, and annulment was the farthest thing on my mind.
And, no, it didn't come with the sticker. I put the sticker on the second day.
Boy, we sure have a lot of responsibilities now! But all great ones. I can't believe we have a Mini. After years of secretly wanting one but figuring we would never have one.
And can I tell you, there is nothing like listening to music while driving a Mini!
Oh, and when I got home, the baby bird was still there by the trunk of the tree. I could tell before I saw it, because the adult birds were totally trying to attack me. Which was fine with me, as long as they didn't try to shit on my new car!
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