more vehicular blues
so i get a call from cam while he's driving to come pick me up. "guess who called?" he asked.
a couple of weeks back, we visited two honda dealers. one tried a bait-and-switch on us -- hey, we don't have any civic hybrids, but maybe you'd be interested in buying a regular civic instead? -- the other, well, we just visited because cam's dad was with us and cam was all in the car-researching mindset. the second (which happened to be the second one we visited a few weeks prior -- and also very same dealership where i bought my civic many moons ago, and to top things off, the very same dealership that i've been boycotting ever since i bought my civic there many moons ago) place didn't try to snow us, so that was automatically a point in its favor. cam talked to a different guy than he did the last time and this different guy took cam and his dad for a test drive of the regular civic. cam then took out his wallet and cheerfully gave this different guy a $500 deposit to hold a civic hybrid for us.
why all this background? because that different guy is who called. a civic hybrid in the requested color was now available.
we went to the dealership straight from my office. cam drove us around in the civic and was mightily pleased, so we then proceeded to the salesman's office. then the night went wacky. the salesman asked me to type in our information. wtf? gender-stereotyping much? i originally thought he was trying to be funny, but i realized he was serious when he then pushed a chair around to the side and positioned the keyboard right in front of it. my typing skills are meh. much better than when i was in the ninth grade and learned how to type the alphabet without looking by putting on a blindfold and then putting my glasses on over them, but not by much. really. cam would have done better. since the salesman was an old asian guy, i just did as he said, but cam and i did some nudging each other under the table.
cam's knee: can you believe this shit?
grace's knee: we are in a strange, strange place, my friend.
the salesman praised my typing, seemed surprised by my salary was what it was, tried to be open-minded about the fact that i kept my last name. i kept wondering, "is this guy for real?" then he left us alone for a bit while he consulted another department. free to chat, cam and i did. then he came back and said something really weird about us getting along so well. "um, we got married," cam said. the guy laughed. "before you get married, you talk. after you get married, you don't talk!" he declared. huh. sure.
to make an already long story a little shorter, suffice it to say that we didn't get the car. a carfax report showed something mysterious and detrimental enough to drop the cr-v's value by more than half from blue book -- which meant that the car payments would be alarmingly big unless we could suddenly put down the difference in cash on the spot. the salesman tried to persuade us to buy the civic anyway and then take up the issue with insurance after the fact, but cam held firm.
so here we are, back at home. cam spoke to someone from insurance, who pointed out that the mysterious entry on the carfax report had nothing to do with the current accident at hand, but instead one that happened two years prior. argh. cam will be talking to the appropriate adjuster soon, i think. it's all very strange and frustrating. we were so close...