First day back. Again. Vacation needs to be 52 weeks long. It’s not, if you hadn’t noticed.
This morning was no different from any other. Got all ready. Dogs and cats and people fed. All chores done. Got out pretty early. Noticed that my lovely wife had forgotten both her coffee and her lunch this morning. So my first errand of the day is going to Tremont Elementary
Ok, in all the excitement, I forgot to finish this post yesterday when it all happened. So I am skipping ahead to 5 pm when something happens that I remember.
At 5 pm I arrived at the car dealer to attempt the car purchase.
So, are you wondering what I am talking about? Well let me back up a little. 10 years ago I purchased a Honda Fit. The worlds greatest car. I am not kidding. At that point in time we were still in the Great Recession and all was bad. I had sold my nice and expensive care and purchased the Fit which was much less expensive. And I promised myself I would not get a new car till I hit 250,000 miles. Guess what? It’s at 250k. Over the last year I have been looking at various cars to replace the Fit for day to day driving. The Fir is my all time favorite so it can’t be replaced in my heart. I said worlds greatest and meant it. Anyway, over the last several months I looked. At many cars. All over. Settled on the Honda Civic Type R. Which is really a race car. Street legal of course. And reasonably priced. Lesson learned. Problem is they make very few. Very few. My local dealer gets 2 a year.
So, about two monrhs ago, maybe three, I was at said dealer for Fit repair. They had a blue Type R on the showroom floor. The blue is hideous unless you like blue. I don’t. But, I had a nice conversation with the sales manager. Kyle Petersen. So happens, a client of mine. How convenient. He actually tried to sell me the blue R even lowering the dealer pack. The word pack means bullshit $$ added to invoice cause you will pay for scarcity. Did not work. I hate blue. After giving Kyle a ton of crap I got in the fit and went home.
Over the next month or so I stayed in contact. By text, usually giving him crap about failure to sell the blue one. An easy sale and the boss can’t get rid of it.
So at some point Kyle told me a white R was coming next. I said I would be interested. He said “your name is on it.” Which means nothing except if there were a list, I would be on top.
3 weeks ago, Kyle texted. February 8 it comes in. Fine. House will close by then. 2 weeks ago he calls. It’s in Georgia. They build them in Europe. Kyle says 1/28 car arrives. It actually arrived 1/21. Since I’m in the middle of buying a house, I can’t finance. So he has the service guys ass the extras slowly. Very. It was done last Friday. And I made an appointment for Monday, the 28th, today. And strangely my loan was approved today. So, here I go.
I may have forgot to mention in all my self centered excitement, we are also buying a gas miser for Emily to drive from Auburn to Dixon each day. Two cars. We decided on an HR-V.
So all I can say is it’s the usual car buying thing except I know the sales manager and finance manager well. And Kyle priced the HR-V at cost. And the R at 3000 over invoice. Which is wildly inexpensive. I have priced them. The dealer pack at most dealers is 10k and some are at 15k. I got a deal. I need to be nicer to Kyle. He can also get me into Club 33 in Disneyland. A really good guy.
So we left the dealership at 930. All done. I will spare you the details of the contracts and signing and BS.
Then we all drove home. Me in my new caR. Marika drove Emily’s. Emily drove my Fit. I kept it. Worlds greatest, duh.
I followed Marika home. She drove wildly at high speed because, it turns out, she loved Moms new ride. Go figure.
Back home and straight to bed. It’s late. Time to sleep. Marika has to be up at 430 to get Jaxon and Pepto to the Vet. I will be up at 4 to get her out of bed. And I was.
But tonight I am going to bed.