Tommy Boy Tried to Sell Us a Car

I wish I liked shopping more. More than one person recently, when told that I have spent part of the day car shopping, has gotten an excited glint in their eye. They would love to go car shopping. Not me. I mean I want a new car, but I would rather it just appear in my driveway all shiny with a bow like those Christmas Lexus commercials.

I think I am too analytical for shopping, so I have a hard time making a decision until I have absolutely every single tiny piece of information and have test driven every option. Which makes for lots of shopping. Which I hate.

I started out thinking I knew what I wanted. A Subaru Outback. It matched me--low maintenance, outdoorsy, and low frills. Until I drove one, then kinda wanted a little more frills and some more get-up-and-go. Maybe this says I am more maintenance than I like to own up to?

So the I actually had to drive a whole bunch of other cars and read Car and Driver and look and look and look. It is exhausting and I still don't have a shiny car with a bow.

At times like this I really wish my dad lived near us. He gets that magical glimmer in his eye when talking about car shopping. He adores it. He does it for FUN. When he is visiting a city with nothing to do for a day, instead of hitting a museum he goes to car dealerships. I am not kidding, ask him. He is like the dad from The Christmas Story who lights up when buying a Christmas Tree. All business, ready to haggle, getting the job done...pretty much opposite of my shopping persona.

(I have no idea why everything reminds me of Christmas right now)

Image from
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114694/

And somehow I have managed to get the least knowledgeable sales guys ever. They are always "new" which means even more trips to the manager to get information. One poor guy, we'll call him Tommy Boy because he is Chris Farley of the movie reincarnate, had been at his dealership for 3 weeks and regaled us with all the things he had done wrong in those 3 weeks (burned out a clutch trying to drive a stick, broke a key in the big key lock box so no one could get keys to the cars, fell down the stairs, walked into the glass door, etc) Of course he couldn't tell us the difference between where the oil goes verses the coolant but he was endearing.

He also was a tad overweight and told us that he kept getting in trouble by "the meanies" which were his managers because his shirt would come untucked. He was proud of his shirt because it was a great deal at $10 and had come with the tie too. This led Honey to gently but repeatedly tell him when his shirt was untucked in the back. But it was a losing battle.

After hours of learning zip about cars but getting a glimpse into what it would be like to be a young, overweight, inept salesman, he and his "meanie" let us go. We shook hands, turned away, and shook our heads--poor Tommy Boy had a button undone, the back of his shirt half-untucked and hadn't made a sale.

So the car shopping continues...