They Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time...

Cars. I'm sure they seemed like a good idea at the time. But did Karl Benz or Henry Ford ever have to sell one of the bastards and then buy another? I'm sure if they did have to endure the absolute pain and humiliation of buying and selling a second hand car they might thought twice about unleashing the automobile plague upon the world.

We've spent the last two weeks wheeling and dealing. Selling the ute privately was a nightmare that not even Freddy Krueger would inflict upon some promiscuous teen. We had to run from one end of the city to the other for meetings, inspections, mechanics and all manner of legal paperwork. In the end we settled on a price out of exhaustion and frustration.

It was a hideous experience but there were still perrils to be dealt with: Used Car Dealers. After trudging through half a dozen car lots I learnt one phrase: money talks, bullshit walks. I still can't tell whether I was the money or bullshit.

The Used Car Salesmen Caricatures that we encountered lived up to their stereotype. They were crooked as a pit of snakes and about as easy to nail down. After finally romping through the savages and sorting the duds from from those kept together by gaffer tape and bubble gum, we settled on a car.

It was green, but I was determined not to hold that fact against it. The thing didn't rattle, smoke, squeak or crumble. There was no rust, dents or corrosion. It seemed to work. Just to rattle the dealer I popped the hood and 'Ummed' and 'Ahhed'. We had this bloke where we wanted him: in retreat on the price.

It worked. We put the screws in him and were sitting pretty. We had managed to come out of the entire experience generally depleted but unscathed. Now we have a car to put the Little Miss in when she's born, which is another story altogether...