4:25 p.m. - Thursday, Apr. 24, 2003
Ms Leslie Shops for Wheels

Well, while you thought I was lounging around, healing and getting rested up, I�ve been out wheeling and dealing for a new used car.

Let�s not go into the reasons, or lack thereof, why exactly I settled on a Lincoln Town car. They�re big. They cost a lot to drive, and they cost even more to fix. But oh! The seats are leather, and there are buttons and switches everywhere you look. And they have air conditioning. They are, as near as I can see, specially designed for people who have more money than good sense. Or in my case�.. even less good sense than they have money. In short�. It�s the perfect car for me.

I found one just around the corner from where I live. A 1995 Lincoln Town Car Signature edition. Eight cylinders. Five thousand, four hundred and seventeen pounds dry. That�s about two and a half tons of solid Detroit steel� and forty or more pounds of seat leather. It sat on the back lot of the local Toyota dealer, gathering a filmy layer of dust atop its factory silver paint and using up enough space for two or more of the smaller Japanese cars that surrounded it. It reminded me of myself, actually, standing fat and tall in a crowd of small and delicate Thais.

I don�t buy many cars. I can be stubborn though, and that fact, along with the twenty bucks I spent for unlimited CarFax reports for a month, convinced me that I could go into battle with Eddy, the friendly lot salesman and his short, brooding, chain smoking sales manager. Eddie started out with scrupuloius honesty. He told me his name was Eddie and then proved it by handing me a business card with his name on it. From that instant, everything else that passed between that mans smiling lips was a complete lie. I didn�t let Eddie control the situation. I required him to follow me to the town car. Ihad found it on the dealership website the night before, and from the picture, I knew right where it was parked. I had already paid for the CarFax report. Twenty bucks to learn that this Lincoln had pulled its tour of duty as a rental car for a major rental company in California. Eddie informed me for free that it was a one owner car and that he could give me the previous owner�s name. I already had it actually. The car had been sold at auction and found its way to New Orleans, where over the course of only four years, it had traveled over a hundred and thirty-five thousand miles. Somewhere along the line, the owner had moved to Bay St. Louis before trading the car in for a Toyota.

Nonetheless, I swooned over the rich burgundy leather and faux-wood interior. I�ve gone so far in my old van that I had forgotten cars had radios� and air conditioning. I marvelled at the cavernous trunk and the freshly detailed engine. He was still running around opening all the doors and telling me what a smart shopper I was when I hopped into the driver�s seat for a test drive. Sales resistance, as it turns out, is not my middle name. Eddie was so overcome to see me sitting there behind the wheel that he started taking little bouncy steps of barely restrained joy while he retraced his path, slamming the doors and jumping into the passenger seat beside me. In his own tiny mind, he had already made a sale. In that itsy-bitsy one of mine, he was right. The test drive was a mere formality. The wheels would have to have fallen off to keep me from buying that car, and I don�t mean just one wheel either. One wheel would have been just a bargaining chip.

So I drove aimlessly for a few minutes and chatted with Eddie abut how he had recently been the manager of a major soft drink bottling company. And how he had money to burn when he retired, but then with the falling stock market and all, he had found it necessary to cash in on all that experience and become a used car salesman. About how he had been married twice and would never want to be married again and yet still�. He sometimes got lonely. When I saw the look in his face out of the corner of my eye, I realized it was high time to end this test drive, so I made a couple of turns and headed back to the lot.

I was going to buy this car. I knew it and he knew it. But what he failed to realize was that I wasn�t going to pay the asking price. Or maybe it was I who failed to understand that the surly sales manager had no intention of dropping the price by so much as copper-clad dime. At any rate, when I announced the price I was willing to pay, the manager just kind of looked past me while Eddie took the keys and went to park the car. I was amazed to learn that they �never� drop the price, that the car was priced to sell, and that if I didn�t buy it right that moment, someone else would buy it within a few days. Surly manager didn�t even seem to care that the layer of dust on the car made it apparent that this car was going nowhere until auction time.

It was only a matter of principle. All they had to do was give me a hundred dollars. I was practically dancing up and down myself with my sudden, intense desire to own this Town Car. A hundred bucks would have let me have some �face� and pride that I could get the best price on a used car. But no� I was totally dismissed.

Surly manager said something about a used Celica somewhere on the lot that he thought I could afford. That did it. I told him I had come to look at the Town Car and nothing else and then I walked off the lot.

I couldn�t believe it. I was confused. Everyone knows that used car dealers mark up their cars without shame so they can let their buyers eventually feel like they are wheelin� dealin� traders. It�s an American tradition. I was offended too. They had dismissed me in the most off-handed way. As if suddenly I didn�t even exist. There wasn�t even an interest in talking about it.

So I went home and fumed. At the same time I was fuming, I was realizing that they had me. I wanted the car. They made me want it even more by keeping it so callously from me. I spent the night trying to think of a way to go back like a lamb and just write a check and get it over with.

Luckily, Eddie called me the next morning. No, the boss wouldn�t drop the price, but if I�d come back to the office, they would show me the blue book and all about how cars are priced and what a great value this one is, blah, blah blah. He gave me an excuse to come back. I was going to see the next highest big boss. He was a nice boss and took several minutes across his big desk, showing me the NADA book and explaining in kindergarten terms how they just priced their cars right the first time and so there was no way to cut down and anyway, their inventory turned over every twenty days, so my Town car would be gone any minute.

Then I showed him my own data from Edmunds.com, which gathers info on what people are actually PAYING for each year and model car. I showed him two other cars, nicer than this one and with less mileage which were priced the same as his, but with 75,000 less miles. I told him it was a shame to see the Town car on this lot, when people were obviously coming to a Toyota dealer to buy Toyotas. I told him a lot of stuff, but he just nodded and smiled like one of those ceramic spring-necked clowns in the back window of a fifty-five Ford Crown Victoria. I told him there were several reasons why I ought NOT to buy that car, but that there was one good reason why I should. It was right there and I could drive it home right now. But, I said, I wasn�t going to pay full retail for a high mileage car and that was all there was to it.

Curses!� I had screwed up again. Big boss just shrugged his shoulders at me. I felt like coming across his desk right then and measuring his windpipe with my two hands.

So I left, with Eddie scampering behind like a drawling Igor, wringing his hands and telling me he would call me if a great deal came in. I told him not to call me unless it was to drop the price on the Town Car and left. Again, I could see I was going to have to crawl hard and eat a lot of sun-dried crow just so I could write a check for the full price. What were these guys? Crazy?

I had Ann�s car, so I took it back to her. When I began my litany against these jerks, she only smiled. Then she said,

�Silly� it�s because you�re a woman. Get used to it�

Can this be true?

I should end this story right here, but there is an epilogue.

I found another Town car, even better than the first one. It was for sale on eBay. Since I never learn anything, I determined that I would make a bid on it. I mean it was only in Pittsburgh and I�m just down the road here in Mississippi. What could go wrong?

I made a small bid, just to test his reserve. It wasn�t enough. Then I wrote an e-mail to him with some questions. He replied with a request that I call him and he could answer my questions. Well now, don�t be shocked, but on the phone, I sound just exactly like a man. So when we talked on the phone, I�m sure that was his assumption.

Within ten minutes, he had dropped 750.00 from his �Buy It Now� price.

The following morning (this morning) he called and dropped another 200.00 from the price. Nine hundred and fifty dollars from a price that was already pretty fair. I think it might have been just because he didn�t realize I�m a woman.

You know what? I think that sucks.

I still bought the car though. I�m flying to Pittsburgh on the first to close the deal. I can�t wait to see his face when he picks me up at the airport.

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