1/17/08

Well, I don’t have a new Altima, yet. Of course I don’t have a Versa anymore either. Yeah, I went ahead and sold Matilda to Enrique. Hmm, I guess now that he’s in possession of the car I could go ahead and reveal his actual name. But I won’t just yet. Here’s the poop. He came to the house with some bills of sale we could sign to make this deal happen; still thinking the dealer was sweating the “aged out” Altima and wanting it off the lot. I sold him Matilda and he “sold” me his 240Z and all the hotrod parts as collateral. We talked about how we were going to work the dealer over at the house before heading out. We wound up having dinner at Hedary’s beforehand just to get a good Lebanese-food-breath going. At the dealer, the sales dude was new enough that Enrique took control of the situation and led the way on the deal. Unfortunately, the dealer had nowhere to go on the car and the best price we could manage was $27,792.00 or so. They did find me a “stripper” car, without the “Premium Power Package,” in dark slate with a charcoal interior for $24,972.00 which is more like it. Before they sent off for that one to be delivered though, Enrique threw out another option. The state of Texas had a “Clean Air” buyback incentive program of some sort going on where they’ll give a $3,000.00 voucher as down payment or trade in value to get an older vehicle off the road. Enrique suggested we do that with Mr. Wiggly. We had discussed it beforehand so it wasn’t like he blindsided me with it. With that $3,000.00 off, I could justify the more loaded car. I dropped a $500.00 deposit on it and went home to fill out Mr. Wiggly’s death warrant. Well, as it turns out, there is a total family income limit for that deal and I made too much money last year. Enrique and I crunched some numbers again and the only way I could buy the “bird in hand” car would be if the “PPP” with leather and electronic gee-gaws was worth $3,000.00 to mom on my car. I asked, knowing the answer, and she said no. So, my next plan of attack was to call the dealer this morning and see if the “Slate Stripper” was still on the table. But I'm getting ahead of myself. We had to take Enrique’s truck and Versa to his house yet. He asked which car I wanted to drive and I said, “Oh, I'm driving Matilda.” We took the cross town trip and dropped off his truck then he brought me home. This morning I did call the dealer and he was “sorry” to hear that the Mr. Wiggly voucher deal fell through but was “glad” to get the dealer transfer on the “Slate Stripper” which, by the way, might be the car’s nickname for a little while. Then again, I could call it Brie. No, perhaps not. So, to make a short story long, I'm now driving Fifi as my daily driver for a bit. It would behoove me to forget the Altima deal and continue driving Fifi as my daily driver and work off a little debt. But then again, I'm not sure I want hooves. No, I'm going to go in and look at the Slate Stripper with the intention of buying it, but if the deal looks in the least bit wonky, I'll walk away. Well, it is lunchtime and I need to go set up a laptop and projector for someone. I'll be back later. I'm back with developments on the Altima story. It looks like Fate is stepping in to protect me from myself once again. They are having trouble locating a car within my specifications. Well, they’ve found a red one but as we all know, red is the one color up with which I will not put. I think I'm going to go in and get my $500.00 back, drive Fifi for a while, build up my savings and net worth by saving that $323.04 a month Matilda payment plus whatever dropping it from my insurance will save, and wait for my next daily driver to come along. Who knows, perhaps they will go on sale later. We’ll see. But wait, there’s more, there’s much, much more! It is now about an hour later than when I said “We’ll see.” Bo just called to say that they will go ahead and sell me that semi-loaded white car off their lot for $26,500.00! That was a number Enrique and I came up with last night on it but they couldn’t go that low. I think if I can borrow another $2-3k from mom, the car will be in my price range. She was willing to front me $2k for the down last night, that’s all I'd be asking again. Keep your finger crossed.