More test driving

Last weekend, my family all went to Albuquerque to spend the night and do a bit of shopping. Now, Albuquerque is the place to find--you guessed it--cars. So we drove up Friday night, had a nice dinner, wrote "Not a Rodent--Do Not Feed to the Snake" on the to-go boxes, and got up Saturday morning, raring to go.

I'd printed out a page of classifieds for red Focuses that we thought might be worth following up. Anything manual we eliminated right away. Somebody said there'd been a mistake and he didn't have a red Focus for sale, but he had a blue something or other I didn't want. I was particularly interested in one from a "Mike Faris," but it was already sold. (Such a great name, though.)

Daddy and I finally came across one still in the possession of the person at the phone number. She was an India-Indian lady, very pleasant and very Indian. "You come drive the car. You drive it, you like it, you buy it!" It would take about twenty minutes from where we were, she said. Excellent, we would see her there.

We made it in fifteen. An Indian gentleman came to the door and told us all about it. Yes, he wasn't surprised it only took us fifteen; certainly he didn't think we were speeding. His wife only drives sixty. But he drives seventy, because if you go only five miles over, the police won't stop you, but if you do any more they might get upset. The car wasn't actually his; it belonged to his sister-in-law and her husband, who own two Schlotzsky's in town. His wife is showing it because she's always home to answer the phone. No, down, dog! She [meaning me] isn't [Indian name]! "The dog thinks you are my daughter," he apologized. "She has not been here for three years; she lives in New Zealand. She works for a large company and now manages two departments even though she is only twenty-nine. What do you do?"

I admitted I was a dental receptionist for a very good dentist. Ah, he said, he has a very good dentist too. He has been going there for ten years and he is a family friend. Daddy said that was a wonderful thing. The friendly gentleman gave us the car keys and said to drive around the development all we liked, but we ought not to go any further because the car had no license plates.

So we hopped in it. It was a fun little thing, and the development had lovely loopy streets that wound right along the lava flows, but the windows were bedimmed to within a shade of their lives and it was really dark in there. Also the radio didn't work and the fuse box cover was gone, so it looked like someone had been fiddling with it. So we took it back and went exploring in our own car.

It appeared that if we took Unser way north, we might wind up at the part of town where we'd agreed to meet Mom and the sister for lunch. So we zipped along the high land west of town, through new developments, through empty fields, up a lava flow, and came out at Paradise Hills among a garden of church ads. Approprate place for them, I thought. Paradise came out, by way of some cloggy traffic, at Eagle Ranch Road, which was just right by the mall.

We stopped at the Kia place to test-drive a Rio, because I think they're cute as all-get-out. The salesman let us try a Spectra first, which is a little bigger and classier. I liked it pretty well. But then--oh then--he let me try a Rio. Now that was fun. I took it around the parking lot. I squeezed between two parked cars and circled a light pole. I circled it--and circled it--and Daddy asked if I was done yet. "Once more!" and then I was. If the Toyota pickup has the turn radius of a beached whale, that Rio had the turn radius of a minnow. Boy was it fun. I parked it (sigh) and the salesman showed us what he might have in my price range. He pointed across the lot and asked if we saw that brown car. "Where?" "Over there. At the end." Hmm.

We got there and it was a gray car. Oh well.

We didn't buy it and went on to the Ford place on top of the hill to see what they could do for us.

The guy worked really hard to find us something. The thing is, I didn't want to finance my purchase. I wanted something I could afford. I don't like debt and see no reason why I ought to have any. He finally led us out to a 2003 Monte Carlo--a sporty two-door thing--red. Very red. It was exceedingly and impressively red. It had a CD player, all kinds of dials that I could read, and crayon marks around the backseat drink holder. I test-drove it and, though it had the turn radius of, oh, a dolphin, I thought to my soul, "Soul, you could live with this car."

So while our nice salesman talked to his manager to see if he could really bring it down into my price range, Dad and I went and had lunch with the fam. They tentatively approved--we showed them pictures on Dad's camera :-), and went back to see. No, they couldn't actually bring it down quite that low; was I sure I didn't want to finance that last $3,000? Yeah, I was pretty sure. Sad days. They showed us something else but I didn't want it, and that about wound up my car shopping for the day.