I forgot my excellent plan for what to put here....

It was flipping amazing though.

Today I'll be updating about the current travail darkly staining the canvas of my life with its coffee (ie: Nasty) smellingness. Car shopping...especially used car shopping. To quote another master, of the force, "You'll never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy." Most of you already know I've been used car shopping, but few of you know all the details. So, with that in mind, here are some details.

The first day we (Lina and I) went shopping, we had a very unstructured, loose approach. Drive down High Way 80, check out the car lots, and stop if we see a car we like/prices we like. Our first stop was quite possibly the worst stop. It was at a small lot, where we noticed a Honda Accord, but a general lack of prices. That has since become our first warning sign; if there are no prices posted, odds are that they're too high for the likes of me. Anyhoosen, we looked about, and wondered at the prices, and then came the salesman.

I think salesman have a n00b instinct...either that or Lina and I generate an aura of "I don't know what I'm doing" ness. We listened to quite a long spiel about how no one in town was trustworthy but him, how we should be careful, not to rush into things, and other things ad nauseum. That was not fun. (Since this is many days later, I'm going to start compressing things)

Next up in our memorable experiences was another oily salesman, one we almost bought a car from just to shut him up. But then we did research and were perturbed...so no deal. It was a Pontiac Montana...avoid those, my friend. They like dying catastrophically. We had a pretty good run of non-traumatic experiences. Then came...excitement.

We had, by this point, realized I don't fit in many cars. Something about my 194 centimeter frame makes me a hard fit. Anyways, we figured out that...dun da DUN! I fit in Ford Crown Victorias. So, when we saw a crown vic (for short, as it were) on a lot...we decided to try it. It was a nice ride, lemme tell you. So, we were pretty pleased with initial inspection, and promised to come back.

So we did.

We began a closer inspection of it, and discovered a few disturbing facts. First off, it had > 190K miles on it. That's kind of a lot. Then, we discovered that the tires were...hilariously mismatched. One was thicker than the others, there were two different load ratings, and three different speed ratings. Not to mention they were all a different brand of tire. This was, of course a little alarming to us, so we attempted to talk the man down from his $3250 stance. No dice.

The man assured us the mileage was not a concern: "It's highway miles! See how clean the upholstery is, and how nice pedals are? Can't have been city miles, so must be amazing!" Backing off from that, we brought up the tires, to his not-caring. "Yeah, I did it on the cheap! Still perfectly good!" Actually, SIR, not. Perfect. ly. Good. Anyways, he then started launching off into...ironically...tactics mentioned by the pontiac dealer. Great. <_< he had been right. Anyways, we beat feet and hoped the got hit by something that would make him change his ways.

HOWEVER, all hope was not lost. You see, the reason we knew I fit in Crvics (for shorter) is that I had tried it in a former police car, at another dealer. At that dealer, we had also tried out a suburban...and were impressed. This dealer was a lot better than Mr. "I eat babies and also sell cars badly," and the Suburban was a better price, with less problems. So, hopefully, we'll buy it on monday. Even more hopefully it's the right one. So, here's to the future! May it contain the right car, and may it not contain a wolverine eating my pants. And my leg inside the pants. And maybe my foot too, depending on how enterprising the wolverine is.


--Flynn is not your mom.