OK, those two things really don’t seem to go together, but perhaps it will all make sense at the end of this.
The day started out normally: went for a run, etc. before work. Karen and I had a parent-teacher conference at Victoria’s school, so Karen rode up with me on the bus. As we were walking to the bus stop, we were talking (as married couples sometimes do), and I felt my foot get stuck for a moment on the sidewalk.
“Great, I stepped in gum.”
I looked down at my shoe. No, it was not gum. It was worse – dog poo. Some a-hole was too lazy to clean up after their dog. Happens all the time in this neighborhood. I should have known better. When I’m by myself, I’m almost always looking down to make sure there’s no poo. This time I didn’t. And being in the city, there was no grass anywhere nearby for me to wipe off my shoe. So I had to rely on a combination of curb, bricks around someone’s tree, and some leaves on the gutter. Not fun. Nor 100% effective.
We get on the bus and start riding up. The girl sitting next to Karen asks one of her friends, “Is Halloween always on a Tuesday?”
“I don’t think so. I think last year it was on a Monday.” her friend replied.
It took great strength on my part not to shout out: “You’re both idiots!” By far, these two were the dumbest people I’ve encountered in several years, and that’s saying quite a bit.
The conference went well, and I headed into work for a fairly uneventful day. We were in the process of trying to buy a new car, since I was diriving a 1995 Jeep and Karen was driving a 2000 Pathfinder. In talking to the salesman that morning, he told me that it would be worth my while to come into the dealership that night, since it was the last day of the month and that they would make me a good deal. So we decided we would head out there, which meant that I had to leave work around 5:30 (i.e., early). I get on the first of two buses to take me home and some crazy homeless person crushes (I think) a beer can (I think) in the aisle of the bus after I sat down, which got whatever liquid it was onto my suit. The one I had just gotten back from the cleaners (see my previous post on this). I am now extraordinarily pissed off – not the best frame of mind to get in to negotiate for a new car. But we’re committed to try. We know that we have another dealer to play these guys off, so if we don’t get a price we like, we’re just going to walk away and try again over the weekend.
At the dealer, the first price we get is about the same as the price we had been quoted the previous Saturday. “No, this price is $350 lower.”
“Yes, but that difference is not worth my time. Not at all.”
“What price would work for you?”
This is the point in negotiations where I don’t know if I’m being ridiculous or not. So I name a price lower than what Karen and I had discussed, but with the two trade-ins would be a good price for us. The salesman seemed to be a little surprised and went to check to see what he could do. He comes back with a second price, but not where I wanted it to be – a few hundred dollars higher. I wanted to work the bottom-line price down some.
“Can we make the bottom-line price a round number?”
“You mean round it up to xx500?” (Don’t think that I’m going to tell you the price.)
“No. Round it down to xx000.”
Slight pause by the salesman. “I can do that. But you owe me lunch.”
I don’t feel guilty about this sort of thing, nor should I. The dealer is still making a nice profit off of me for almost no work. We go through with the trade-ins and the sale and leave that night with a brand new Lexus GX470. This is a very nice vehicle. When picking me up from work on Thursday night, Karen let me drive home. “You know,” she said, “after this, we can never go back to an ordinary car.”
I couldn’t agree more.
