The following is something I found saved among the unposted drafts of my blog. Unposted, I imagine, because I was still actually in the middle of the relationship I was describing, still trying to make it work somehow. One night over the phone, my dad asked how we were doing. And I didn’t really know how to give a straight answer, because it all felt too close to identify clearly. So instead, I offered this analogy which, feels so much more dire in retrospect. If you feel this way about a situation, you should probably just cut and run.
I’ve spent most of my adult life driving vehicles which served most of my practical purposes, but were slightly cramped and sort of embarrassing to be seen in.
A particular model has had my eye for a while. There are shinier ones on the lot, but they’re not really my style. I don’t know what the inside looks like, only that my last car was half-painted in primer and I’d look hella fly arriving to anywhere in this thing.
I ask the dealer for the price, and it sounds very reasonable. However, each time he repeats the the number it seems to get just a little bit higher. He shows me inside the car and I notice right away that it’s a manual — already sort of a dealbreaker. I start to walk away when the dealer reminds me of all the feelings and fantasies I had when I saw it from the outside. Don’t I still want to look hella fly? Okay, yes. I suppose I still totally do. It’ll take some serious adjustment, but so far that seems to be the only thing.
I ask the dealer some questions about the title and how many miles are on the car. He manages to completely evade my questions while focusing on the problems of my previous vehicle, assuring me that it has none of those. This isn’t that kind of car. It’s a much higher class model than I may be used to, and frankly, he doesn’t think I should have ever settled for less in my entire life, even before this car was manufactured. In about the same breath, the dealer also tells me that I don’t really look like this model’s usual customer base. It’s a lot of car, and I will need to keep up.
By the time I have finished signing the paperwork, the price has more-than doubled. I don’t know how this happened. I’m 110% certain of the first price I was quoted, but the car did not have a price tag posted, and no one else was around when he’d said it. I’m looking at these payments now and realizing that I probably should have backed out much earlier in our conversation. The dealer remarks to me that, while the payments may seem steep at first, I will have more than enough money once the impression I make in this car advances my career. It sounds incredibly stupid hearing him say it outloud, but somehow I imagine that scenario and only want him to be right.
I get the car home and there are so many features! All kinds of awesome shit I never needed or would have even noticed if it wasn’t here. I turn on the satellite radio and the stereo sounds fucking perfect. I go to roll down a window, only to discover that none of them work. I try to turn on the air and it doesn’t work either. Now it’s 101° outside and I feel like I’m literally dying.
I take it back to the dealership and explain to the dealer that he sold me a car without working windows or air in the goddamn California summertime. He says that’s standard. “No it’s not.” I say. “How can you be so sure?” he asks me.
“Because,” I say, “There are buttons inside clearly indicating that they are meant to roll down the windows and turn the air on. And every car has some mechanism by which to do these things, because standards, and what you just said is not a real thing.”
“This is not every car.” he shoots back, launching into some irrelevant spiel that I don’t care about when I just nearly baked to death. As I start to talk about trading the car back in, he finally says something like, “I’ll see what I can do.”
I leave the car with the dealer and on my return he announces that he has heard my request and come up with a solution. He has had a minibar installed.
I explain that I give 0 fucks about minibars and would like to have working windows please, that I think that is a basic thing that almost no one ever actually has to debate when buying a car. He assures me once again that he is not trying to operate like other dealerships, and also reminds me of my price range.
“Look,” he says, “I can’t provide you with anything fancier than a minibar. I think you are asking too much.”
—bwargh von modnar
Flommist Bwargh von Modnar is. Copyright © 2016 Bwargh von Modnar. Image from 27 fantastic colorized photos of classic American automobiles.
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