Posted April 13, 2008

My wife's car finally reached that age when, as cars do, it started falling apart. This age varies from model to model, but generally it can be described as "the day the warranty expires" plus one.

So, we bought her a new car.

Buying a new car is an experience unrivaled in the annals of American life, unless you've had a root canal and your doctor missed the class on the importance of anesthetic. That's because, at some point you are going to have to speak with a car salesman.

The problem with car salesmen is that they are genetically programmed to give you a FANTASTIC DEAL, no matter how long it takes. They do this by eventually selling you the car for hundreds...no thousands...no, wait, millions of dollars below the sticker price. Or the invoice price. Or the Blue Book price. It doesn't really matter. The point is, they are selling you the car for less than it cost to make it.

(In a surely unrelated news item, the auto industry is laying off workers again.)

In a mere three-and-a-half hours the salesman explains the reason you are getting such a FANTASTIC DEAL is because you are not just a customer. Apparently, through the simple act of handing over your life savings, plus a significant part of the net worth of your local bank, you have become, and this is very important, family.

Let me repeat that. You are family. Relatives. The kind of relatives everybody wants to invite to Thanksgiving dinner.

Relatives with money.

Before you can set foot near your new car, your family wants to get to know you. This includes the salesman, the sales manager, the general manager, the general manager's secretary, the service manager, the receptionist, three mechanics and a plumber who is snaking out the sewer line and only came inside to test flush the toilet. (Average time: six hours.)

They all go out of their way to tell you that you could not have gotten the car for less if you stole it. In fact, the sales manager will tell you that you did steal the car, but he's not going to call the police because, after all, you're like the mother and father twice removed he always wished he had.

Of all your new relatives, no one gets to know you better than your new cousin, Bob, who is majoring in psychology.

Supposedly, Bob is there to type up the paperwork that makes the bank the real owner of your new car. He is actually doing research for a term paper on how much pressure it takes to make a marriage implode. Bob does this by requiring you to make a few, simple, life-or-death decisions in front of your wife.

In our case, Bob asked if I wanted protective coating on the paint, undercoating on the chassis and stain-resistant coating on what he called the "interior seats." (Apparently the exterior seats are immune to stains because of their location, which no one has ever seen.). The important thing to remember is that each one of these options increases the cost of the car by about seven loan coupons.

Each option is worth it, however, as Bob carefully points out. After spending all this money on a new car (which, Bob noted, was a FANTASTIC DEAL), how would I feel if some red-berry-intolerant bird targeted the car while we're doing sixty-five down the freeway? According to the owner's manual, which Bob has memorized, without the protective coating you must immediately get out of your car and clean IT off because IT will burn a hole in your paint the size of Crater Lake.

(Apparently, it is not polite in my new family to discuss what IT is, beyond letting you know IT contains the destructive power of a radioactive two year old.)

Bob is deeply concerned that if I can't protect my car, what does that mean about my ability to protect his favorite relative, Cousin Your Wife. (Bob seems less concerned that the odds of my wife doing sixty-five down the freeway outside the car are decreasing with every birthday.)

Bob is also very concerned that we not become estranged relatives, so he delicately brings up the extended warranty. This is his way of keeping us in the family another seven years for a fraction of the cost of the car.

Granted, that fraction is about 9/10ths, but Bob is only looking out for my best interests, one of which seems to be that someone could get the rest of my money before I leave it to him in my will.

When we drive off into the sunset, which actually took place three hours earlier when we were meeting Uncle George, the janitor, the car is fully loaded.

Sure my wife and I will be cutting back on the luxuries for a while, like food and clothing. But at least we have someplace to spend Thanksgiving.

©2008 Jay Douglas