10/20/14. The post where I buy a new car. Or maybe two.

10/20/14: went to bed too late last night and woke up too early this morning.  I took my morning walk and then got on the scale to survey the damage from the long weekend trip.  You may have heard my reaction.  It sounded a little like this:  http://youtu.be/Pr3sBks5o_8  Which is probably not as bad as the sound my friend is making right now as she reads this and thinks of all the shoes she is not buying while she waits for me to lose 10 pounds...

The plan was fairly simple: go to work in the morning, call the dealership when they open to get the trade-in value, then make the hour drive there and back to either trade my car in for a new one or at least empty out the contents to sell to the shady "we buy damaged cars" guys.  In and out, nobody gets hurt, right?  

From the very start, things didn't go as planned. I left a detailed message with the dealership explaining the situation just after their stated opening time, and after an hour, no one had returned my call.  Strike one.  I called back an hour later and finally got someone on the phone, who got all the details and backstory about my car and my contact information and said he would get the trade-in value for me.  Spoiler alert - more than 12 hours later I still have not heard from him.  Strike two.  During the time I was waiting for someone to return my phone call, I did a little more research and just couldn't get comfortable with what I saw about the reliability.  Strike three and you're out.  

So instead of an hour drive, we decided to go to a dealership for a different maker, about two miles away from our house.  Six hours later, I had a new car.  And coincidentally, so did my patient, long-suffering husband.  We decided over the last week to try thinking more strategically about vehicles, rather than continuing the "yours and mine" concept we had when we first met, and I think we came up with a good plan.  But ask me again when we make our first payment.

I think I am going to be really happy with my new car.  I went with an automatic transmission this time,  much to the relief of my family, friends, and doctor, but I made up for that small bit of common sense by also going with a hardtop convertible. Perhaps it is a bit of a mid-life crisis car. Or more likely, a mid-life, new medical disorder, not-sure-how-much-longer-I'll-be-able-to-drive-this-kind-of-car, crisis car.  There are much less healthy ways I could deal with this, I suppose.

With such a complicated transaction, we barely completed it before it was time for rehearsal.  After rehearsal, we celebrated with grocery store sushi.  The only kind we can afford now.  My patient, long-suffering husband generously offered to make the drive tomorrow morning to give my old car a proper burial.  The fact that he has a new car with which to do the deed may have factored into the offer, but I decided I'd better take him up on it before he could change his mind.  

My foot made it through the day, but it didn't share my excitement about the new car.  It has developed an annoying need for attention that seems to cause it to act up at inopportune times.  Time to turn up the stimulator again.  I had hoped my new car would have a Bluetooth spinal cord stimulator amplitude control option, but no dice.  Guess I'll have to do it the old-fashioned way.