Buy a Car...Check

Last night I thought I had a BBQ Tijuana Style to go to. I even headed over to the Mexi side of town yesterday afternoon to buy some Sangria for the BBQ. Around 5 P.M. I re-read the Evite and realized that the party wasn't until next weekend. Oops. So, what's a girl who thought she had plans for a Saturday night and then figured out last minute that she didn't have plans supposed to do? I could have stayed home lonely and sad, watching Bridget Jones' Diary (Edited of Course) for the thousandth time. Or...I could go buy a car...which I did. I was thinking of waiting until I had someone to go with me, but then I just thought to myself, 'what kind of a Spinster won't go buy a car by herself on a Saturday night...? Certainly not me.' I mean, there may be younger Spinsters out there looking up to me. I remember how disappointed and heart broken I was when I found out that Sheri Dew a) was not a returned missionary and b) wouldn't fly to Peru by herself to meet up with a group from Deseret Book even though someone was going to meet her at the airport. And although my faith in Sheri Dew as head Mormon Spinster has now been restored...it took awhile. I even returned all three copies of her book that I got for Christmas that year...all three. Besides, I need to be independent. I can't always rely on other people to help me do everything...if so it will be a long, needy life of solitude. So I just decided to go on my own. I did take my friend Eric's phone number with me just in case I got in a bind. Eric used to sell cars and had offered to help me out with the whole car buying process. And I had pretty much settled on the Honda Civic anyway. However, I did last night reconsider and test drove a Mini, looked more into the Subaru situation, and even checked out the Mazda 3's and 6's but in the end I just went with my original choice of the Civic. So I knew what I wanted and thought it would be easy. First of all though there are like basically no 2008 Honda Civics left anywhere, so I had to just get over the whole dislike of uneven years thing and go for the 2009. The good news is that they added a new color that I love in the 2009 Civics that wasn't available in 2008 Civics so that helped me get over the whole odd year thing. So here's a summary of my first real car buying experiences. Every other time I've purchased a car it has been from a neighbor or friend or friend of my dad or something so it has been very low stress. Here's how the night went. Go to Honda dealership. Ask about Civics. They of course only have like four on the lot. All are 2-door. Test drive 2-door. Like the feel of the Civic. Go in to talk about possibly ordering in a 4-door in the color I want. Sleazy manager with major little man syndrome comes out wearing a blue pin striped suit with an orange shirt to tell me that because it is "Saturday night" and a "rainy day" he's going to cut me a great deal on the Civic of my dreams which just happens to be coming in early next week. WOW, what a coincidence. Feel "the game" coming on. Don't want to play "the game." Just want to buy the stupid car. Back and forth and back and forth on price, blah, blah, blah. Feeling pressured. Don't like feeling pressured/lied to. Realize that I forgot to wear my "I'M NOT A RETARD" shirt. Shoot. Now they won't know I'm not a retard and I know they are playing the game and that I'm not going to fall for it. Decide to call my backup plan Eric to ask him the best way to get out of the game. Eric tells me that the guys at the other Honda dealership in town are better to work with and that they will probably sell me the car for invoice plus 100 bucks. Tell sleazy manager that I'm going to other Honda dealership to not play the game and to get a better deal. Sleazy manager tries more tricks. Tells me that he too will sell it to my for invoice + 100. "Will you agree to this?" he says. "Sure, I just want to get this over with." Sleazy manager comes back with offer written...but oops...they forgot the $900 POC fee that they have to add to the invoice price. "Oops," I say, "I forgot to tell you that I'm not stupid. Goodbye." I call other Honda dealership, tell them about horrible situation with sleazy car dealer, and ask if they will sell me a Civic for invoice plus 100 bucks. They say "sure we hate those guys at that dealership...we'll do it for you...how fast can you get here..." It is 9 P.M. now. Leave hated Honda dealership...practically run out the door with sleazy manager following closely behind me. Get to good Honda dealership. Nice friend Eric calls nice Honda dealership to make sure they'll treat me right and give me the car for invoice +100. Nice big guy at nice Honda dealership named Slim helps me out and managers and everyone did treat me right. No game. Wonderful. They found the car I wanted and the deal was sealed within 10 minutes. Filled out paperwork, etc. Was at the dealership until almost 11 P.M. Tired but glad to be done. Got my Honda Civic LX Sedan in Polished Metal Metallic for invoice plus 100 bucks. Yay! Now supposedly my car is on some boat coming from Japan. I didn't even think they made Hondas for America in Japan anymore, but what do I know. Hopefully I'll see the car soon. The end of my first solo car buying experience. Thanks mucho Eric for your help!