The Hazard Chronicles

I am breaking tradition this week and doing a second blog post. Amazing, isn't it.

The reason I am doing this is that on Sunday I didn't really get a chance to tell about our week, which was actually quite eventful. First of all, my car died. I know, it's very sad. I loved that car. For those of you who don't know, it was a 1990 Honda Accord. The front speakers didn't work, it had no A/C, and the driver's side window was held together entirely with heavy-body dental impression material. The car was great.

But alas, it was not meant to last. We knew this from the beginning, but it was still a sad day when I was driving home from work and suddenly the transmission started making horrible clunking/grinding noises. I pulled off to the side of the road and put the car in park. That was the last time the car shifted gears. It is stuck. The transmission is a mangled mess of gears and twisted metal. The car is a gonner.

It served its purpose though. See, I refuse to have a monthly car payment. I just don't like it. So this car was purchased with the intent that it would get us through to a time when we were a little bit more financially stable and we could buy a better car with cash. In that, at least, it was successful. On Saturday I drove home a new/used Prizm. I like Prizms. I like that they are, by Toyota's own admission, Corollas with a lower price tag. I like looking at all the mechanical parts and seeing "Toyota" etched, printed, or engraved on everything there is.I like that they go forever, are economical, and are even a little bit fun to drive. I like my new car. I think- *hope* that we have a long history together.

There is a story about getting it though. Without going too much into detail, we found ourselves caught in the middle of a family feud where the son, who owned the car, was trying to sell at whatever price he could get. He was looking for quick cash. Apparantly he had just been released from prison and needed to pay for court fines, but his behavior was suspiciously similar to one who needed cash to buy more drugs. He was continuously strung-out on something because he was totally incapable of forming full sentences. Also, he made it very clear to us that he wanted to be secretive about the transaction. He trusted nobody and did not want to let the car out of his sight.

On the other hand, you have loser-boy's father, a man who doesn't speak a word of English, but is excellent at communicating via hand gestures, facial expressions, and voice intonations that he doens't like you and thinks you should go jump off a cliff. Even though the title was not in his name, he was the person holding onto it and was intent on seeing a fair price offered for the vehicle. He also seemed to have trust issues and was not willing to let the car out of his sight.

Then there is us. We wanted the best price possible (obviously). We also wanted to take the car to a mechanic to have him confirm that everything was in good working order.

So we all caravaned over to the mechanic- Us (with all of our kids), Loser-boy, Grumpy old man, Loser-boy's girlfriend, and some young kid who acted as Gumpy's translator. Add the mechanic to the mix, who also had a colorful personality, and we were a sight to behold. There I am, insisting that an admittedly low-ball offer is more than fair. Loser-boy is saying "that sound's good- just show me the money." Grumpy is yelling and screaming like a maniac in a foreign language, and the mechanic is just sort of laughing and stiring the pot at every chance he gets. In the background you can hear our children wailing that they are hungry and cold as if we had just picked them up off the street on our way over.

Suffice it to say that in the end of it all we came out with a good car at a great price.

Well, that's pretty much all that I have to write. Work has been interesting...more on that later. For now you can be thankful (on this Thanksgiving Day) that I updated again and told you this story.