so i did something on friday that i have never done in my 41 years...i bought my own car, by myself. now maybe you other women of the world have been walking around all willy nilly buying cars without a male counterpart in tow, but i am not one of those women. when i was younger, i had my dad to help. then when we moved to maryland, i enlisted my uncle. the last 3 times i bought a car, my husband was with me. if i didn't have him, i would've asked a male friend. despite this, i'm definitely consider myself an independent person...i just never bought a car independently. so let me set the scene for this tale. the car i wanted to buy was an hour away in fairfax, virginia. orginally, the male counterpart that lives with me was going to make the trek with me on saturday morning. however, i got a wild hair up my ass on friday and decided to leave right after work and just get it done. my friday OOTD was jeans rolled up (i'm short), a sweet pair of nikes, and an oversized red sweatshirt that had a rainbow, heart, and the word TEACH on it.
after an hour ride in the rain after work, i arrived at (what i thought was) the dealership. when i pulled in, admittedly, the place looked a little sketchy and not at all what i had seen on the website. i had reached out via email about the car i wanted to test drive and a man named jeffrey wrote me back immediately and said to come on by. i sauntered in wearing my rainbow shirt and a smile, scared and anxious out of my wits at what i was about to do. as i lowered my umbrella, 3 middle eastern men rose out of their chairs, 2 black men stared at me, and one old white man who probably sold no less than 4,234 cars in his day started walking toward me. the place smelled of bad cologne and even worse decisions. upon approaching me, the older white man was very wrinkly, had a pack of smokes in the front pocket of his shirt, and shook my hand vigorously while asking, 'i'm ed! so what brings you in today?!'
the other five men continued to stare as i said (as independently as i could muster), 'i got an email from jeffrey stating i could come in and test drive a car i was interested in?' he then looked at the others, as if one of them was going to play the ROLE of jeffrey, because clearly no one named jeffrey was there. after an awkward silence from everyone involved, ed turned to me and said, 'i'm sorry honey, but i think you got the wrong dealership.' (honey!) i showed him the email, including the address, and he said, 'oh! the good news is you are close!' ed proceeded to give me directions. i thanked him, put up my umbrella and sashayed back out into the rain, pretending that it didn't take all my effort not to shit my own pants to even walk in that place. as the aroma of cologne cleared my nostrils, i hopped back in my jeep and drove to the correct location. truth be told, at this point, i turned around to drive my independent self back home.
i plowed on, arrived at the actual dealership (which was only about 5 minutes up the road from this one), and walked in. this time, two black dudes stared at me and one younger white dude waved. i stood there in my nikes and said, 'hi! i was in contact with jeffery about test driving a car?' to that, the one black dude leaped out of his seat and said, 'heeeeyyy! i'm jeffrey! how you doing?! i have the car right out front for you. let's go check it out!' (whew.) as we got in for the test drive, he said, 'do you want to do a city drive, highway, or more like backroads and stuff. my head whipped around and i said, 'jeffrey do i look like someone who wants to drive in a city!?' he bust out laughing and said, 'backroads it is.' we literally did like a loop around a nearby neighborhood and i said, 'okay, we can go back.' he chuckled and stated that he thinks this set the record for shortest test drive. i knew the price on the vehicle was fair, so i wasn't going to haggle (can you imagine that conversation?) with him, but i did want to get a certain amount for my jeep.
when he showed me the print out with the NUMBERS, the trade-in value was lower than i wanted so i said, 'listen, jeff, i need at least another thousand for my jeep. other than that, everything else looks good and i'll sign if you can do that.' (i think i dry heaved at one point into my sleeve, but i said it like i was on fire.) he walked over to his manager and i walked outside to call my husband and make it look like i was discussing things with him. i wasn't, i was discussing the 394 text messages from my children asking me questions about plans, because my husband told them to 'ask their mother.' anyways, jeff came back to the table and told me all was good and to sign 13 documents to seal the deal. i then met with a 'finance advisor' who turned out to be a young lad of age 23. i only know his age because he asked for my birthDATE and when i said 1982, he stated, 'oh! when did you graduate from high school?' i said, '2000.' he then said casually, 'cool, that was the year I WAS BORN.' (cripes) all in all, the whole experience was semi-hilarious and also empowering. as i drove home in my new vehicle wearing my rainbow shirt and nikes, i mentally crossed off 'buy own vehicle independently' on the old bucket list. next time? i'm taking my dad.
