Zoom Zoom
2/11/2
Saturday, I meant to wake up early. It wasn�t possible. We had stayed up until midnight on Thursday, playing cards until eleven and then Aisai had to figure out if we had the money for my new radiator. Friday, I got the new radiator and then Aisai and I went and looked at a Subaru in Decatur, a small city about 30 miles from Huntsville. Also, oddly, Decatur has a Steak n� Shake where Huntsville doesn�t. Not waking up early Saturday made me think we couldn�t get what we wanted to done. I showered and we went and ate lunch at Wendy�s, which had done their chili wrong, and Aisai ordered the chili salad thing, and I had chili along with some other stuff, so lame meal. We drove a 1995 Altima that the dealer wanted $6600 for. It was trashed. I could tell that Aisai thought that $6000 was not going to be enough to buy her a good car. Our research indicated that the cars that best matched our list of demands were the 1995 Nissan Altima and the 1995 Mazda 626 in either the LX V6 or the ES, which also has a V6. We�re responsible for a college age retreat in the fall, and need to find where it will be, so we drove a little over an hour to get to Joe Wheeler State Park and looked at the lodge and cabins. On our way back to Huntsville, Aisai was looking at the printouts that I had made on Friday. There was a 1996 626 LX V6 in Crossville, Alabama. Neither of us knew where this was at all. Aisai used her cell phone to call and talked with the guy. He told us how to get there and we drove there. I don�t know what I was thinking. I was thinking that Crossville was going to be about an hour away. Well, we drove through Guntersville, which is about an hour away, then through Albertville, then we took a left and drove and drove. Crossville is not close by. The car was great. But I knew clearly in my head that we couldn�t afford it. The car was a little more sluggish than it should have been since the seller hadn�t been using premium unleaded in the car. All the reviews that I read of it said you needed to or the knock inhibitor will kick in robbing you of power. We got back from our drive and had decided that we�d like to buy it. We had another 900 dollars besides the six thousand dollar auto loan. When we got out of the car, I told the man that I liked it. There was a number on the window. It was 5420. I knew that this wasn�t the price for the car but thought I�d be funny and test it out. �And you want $5,420 for this?� �I tell you what, I�ll knock off $200 and sell it to you for $5200.� �Then I�ll buy it for $5200.� We ended up paying around $5650 or so for it since we got a two-year warranty and had to pay 3% tax. The warranty was supposed to be sold at around $900 to $1000 but he just showed us the literature from the company he buys it through, and actually badmouthed the level two coverage since everything it added to the level one was ridiculous. Like the brake coverage on level two covers the master cylinder housing and metal brake likes which never need replacing anyway. He offers a 30-day return thing. And my former Boss�s Boss�s Boss knows the guy and was about to buy a dually truck from him about a year ago [but he got a divorce instead] so I feel good about this transaction. The man was rather low tech so our car loan money couldn�t just be zapped to his account. We have to take a check out to him today. He�s really actually old and retired, but seems to be selling cars at around wholesale as a way of meeting people. And he was a really nice guy too. When we were leaving, around 5:30 on Saturday night, some 20-something boys had showed up and they wanted to look at his convertible camero. �Oh, it�s not the right season to sell that yet. I�m going to hang onto it for a while.� We�ll be driving out there today with the check. After that, we�ll sell the Camry, which I shouldn�t have ugly feelings toward since it did save us money, but...eh...good riddance. I made Aisai a CD for her drive home. The 626 has a CD player, a Sony too, it�s like mine but in the pre-Xplod years. I got that Zoom Zoom Zoom song for her CD. If you�re looking for it, it�s off the Only The Strong soundtrack.
