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Not Buying a New Truck
Yesterday I looked into buying a 1999 Chevy S-10 four-wheel-drive pickup. The thing only had 22,000 miles on it and must ve been owned by a little old man who only drove leaves to the landfill in the fall. My current knock-about, a 1997 Ford Ranger, has 105,000 miles under its hood and is looking a little peaked. I heard about the S-10 and went to have a look.
It was a nice truck. Four doors. Short bed. Automatic everything (my Ranger is manual everything). And the price was good. But we couldn t come to terms with what my truck was worth (I dont want to sell it privately), so the deal fell through.
All-in-all I spent two, maybe three hours, over two trips at the car dealer. Wasted time, right? I don t think so.
You see, in those few hours, my one-year-old son saw some big balloons (hung from the showroom s ceiling) and he LOVES balloons. He kept pointing and saying, B-boon! B-boon! He reached for them hopefully a few times, but could never touch them. Even so, he was very happy.
When we came back the second time, the Wife-Beast and I brought our eight-year-old boy. This was during the interminable paperwork through dancing with the manager phase and all the apologizing for taking so long from the salesman. But we didn t care.
The wife-beast and I were enjoying some alone-time with the eight-year-old. It s seldom just the three of us. I taught him some of the nuances to three-ball juggling (like a good eight-year-old, he had some balls in his pockets); we played endless games of hangman (including one game where the wife-beast didnt miss a letter and I got one answer with only one letter on the board); and taught the young boy how to play the family version of 20 Questions.
All-in-all we had a lot of fun.
And we cleaned out the inside of my old pickup to boot!
Comments
Ray said:
See, now that we've got comments working, no one says boo.
I was looking at a truck too. One of Ciara's friends' dad has a Chevy 1500 that he's thinking of selling, and I like the look of it.
There won't be balloons, salesmen, or trade-ins.
I bet he won't decide to sell it, but I told him to make sure he calls me when he does.
Posted on Aug 02, 2005 10:17 PM
ruminator said:
Boo! :)
We won't be in the car market again for three or four years, at least. I like that.
The last experience wasn't too bad, though. We've learned a couple of things about buying cars over the last 30 years. But no one gets it perfect--except the dealership!
Posted on Aug 03, 2005 04:40 AM
Rebecca said:
Passing on the idea of multitasking to children: Priceless
:)
Posted on Aug 04, 2005 02:29 PM
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