sunday, june 28, 2009 ramblings

If, as a female, you've ever thought about buying a car - you know the drill. You try to employ ANYBODY who is male. Your husband, boyfriend, neighbor, cousin, neighbor's son's friend, paperboy.... Their knowledge of cars is not important - helpful, but not imperative. Testosterone level is related to the price of the car - simple fact. My husband was good at buying cars, but considering I only buy a car every 3 years or so, it just didn't seem like a viable reason to stay married. But I digress.

Yesterday I went to a few car dealers with my cousin. Since she is also of the fairer sex, you know the minute we walked onto a lot, a "Suckers on the lot" alert went out to all available salesmen. It's no problem for me as I have a built-in distrust, dislike and borderline hatred for car salesmen - it's a knee-jerk reaction and I have been accused of turning into a contemptuous idiot when approached by car salesmen. (as a side note, I have been told I have the 'assholey gene' which is listed in the DSM-V under 'Defense Mechanisms'). The conversation goes something like this:

salesman (approaching): Hi, my name is Will (extends hand).
me: I'm Merrily (shake hand like a dead fish)
salesman: What are you ladies looking for today?
me: An SUV.
salesman: What did you have in mind?
me: Small.
salesman: How much do you want to spend?
me: Dunno, it depends.
salesman: New or used?
me: Used.
salesman: Can you give me an idea of what year vehicle you'd like?
me: Depends...

You can see how this conversation goes. I admit, the guy doesn't have much to work with but I'm a female and I know the 'Suckers' alert has gone out so I'm going to go with my birthright and assume the guy can read my mind.

We go inside the dealership (it was over 105 degrees outside and standing on bituminous paving means the heat emanating from the paving was approximately 180 degrees). The salesman gives us water and we sit while he pretends he's working his magic on some computer elsewhere (he's discussing the 'Sucker factor' with his boss). He comes back with a few cars, none of which are in my price range of course but that's ok, I'm not intending on buying any of them. In defense of the salesman, he was a nice kid. I asked him where he was from (although I knew by his accent) so he couldn't say to me "Gee, no kidding, I'm from Azerbaijan too...". He was from a rough area of Boston so I knew which are I needed to be from so he knew I wasn't kidding (and possibly had an Uncle Guido that would break his legs - I look sooooo Italian....).

The first car they pull up is a TrailBlazer. Hello? Didn't I say "SMALL" SUV? Do I look like I need a 9-passenger vehicle? Pretty color though... Then he tells me about a wonderful Mercedes M-something. Yup, I live 2 skips from Scottsdale, I sure do want to fit in.... Being bored with this whole thing by now, I figured I'd test drive it and see what I thought of the Mercedes. Again, no intention of buying it but thought it might be fun. Oh Merrily, sometimes you can be soooo wrong....

The Merc is sitting in the front of their lot - one of those cars that says "we can't move this piece of junk but hey, it looks great!". It's black and the sun has been beating down on it for days/weeks/months.... The salesman opens the doors (we stand back because of the blast-furnace effect) and he starts it to get the a/c going. We can't sit in it because the leather seats have heated up to 'broil' and I'm not wearing asbestos clothing. Ten minutes later, I can sit on part of the seat so start to investigate the interior while the salesman goes to get a plate. My cousin, who seems to like this vehicle, is playing with all the buttons. She's the type that pushes something FIRST and then says 'Wonder what this does?'. I tell her it's the HomeLink system and she goes pale (she knows little about these things - it's fun to scare her). I play with a hidey-hole that looks like a roll-top desk (gee, I've always wanted a roll-top desk in my car) and trying to figure out why the a/c isn't really blowing much over 'tropical breeze'. The salesman comes back and by now I'm heading towards 'extremely overheated'. My cousin needs to know what all the buttons are for - there's SIX of them with a '3' on them (very intuitive). I'm fascinated with the 'ESP' button and ask the salesman if this will warn me of upcoming traffic accidents.... Thankfully he's from Boston and 'gets me'.

After being shown all the hidey-holes in the Merc (of which there are many) - "Press that button - look, a cup holder!.... Press the button under there - look, an ash tray!...". At least now I know why this car is the choice of drug dealers, there are so many places to hide stuff... Finally we get on the road - the dealer assures me that once we get moving, the a/c will kick in (you can only imagine my thoughts on this). Two minutes into the ride, he's got my cousin (front seat) frantically pushing buttons - we're on 'bake' by now. The sweat is dripping off my hair, running down my back and even my toes are sweating. We go around a corner and the salesman tells me to "Gun it!! That should get the a/c going...." I'm thinking this is just THE perfect car for Arizona where we have 6 months over temps over 100 degrees. ('sorry officer, I was just trying to get the a/c going....').

I finally pull into the lot after the 'test bake' - which was no easy feat as I'd lost all gripping ability on the steering wheel. I opened the door and expected to be annealed to the seat. Nope! I literally slid off the leather seat on a sea of sweat (lovely visual, eh?) - right onto the 180-degree tarmac. Needless to say, we then went straight inside the dealer where the games continued, but they actually let me go without demanding to have my phone number so they could call me constantly with 'deals'... It may have had something to do with the sweat.....