5/21/12

I got nothin’.  Well, nothing interesting at least.  Saturday morning I took The Seven to the shop and changed the oil.  Of course our oil receptacle is chock full right now so I had to pour the waste oil into a gallon antifreeze container.  I need to find a place to dump that barrel.  Anyhoo, after changing the oil, I had a look at mounting the tool box under the hood.  I lost interest in that project really quickly.  I fiddled around for a little while and decided to go get the inspection done.  Oh, they were about to have an auction at the facility and it was about to get crowded.  I was in no mood to be involved with that.  I headed out to my usual place but the inspector was not in.  I was told he’d be there at noon.  I took off.  I decided to try the Jiffy Lube, or whatever it is by my house where I got Fifi and Miss Clio inspected.  To get there I took 183 off of I-20.  So what?  Well with the construction for the new toll road going on in that area, the 183 exit is… convoluted, to say the least.  Juan has to navigate about a mile of one-lane road between K-barriers.  In The Seven, I felt like I was skimming along the trench of the Death Star.  It was really cool.  Eventually I got to the Jiffy Lube but chickened out at the last moment.  My fear was that I'd go in saying, “It is a 1967 Lotus,” but they would pull up the registration with “2005 Assembled Vehicle” on it.  Apparently they do not cross reference after all because when I un-chickened out and went back, they did the safety inspection and stuck on a new sticker.  From there I went to the Kia dealer as I threatened last Friday.  The dude showed me a really bitchin’ Optima and we went for a test drive.  I took it by and showed it to mom.  She liked it but wasn’t ready to commit… which I totally understand.  I drove the salesman back to the dealership and we talked a bit.  Some preliminary numbers were bandied about and I said, “I’ll go take mom to lunch and we’ll discuss it.”  I hopped in The Seven to go home and discovered that while the clutch pedal was to the floor, the car still wanted to back up.  “Hmm,” thought I.  “That’s odd.”  Sure enough, the clutch hydraulics are going tits-up.  I limped it home, pumping up the clutch to get it into first gear and “floating” the others.  Once I had it parked and changed shoes, mom and I went to Papadeaux and discussed the car.  I'm not sure where she was at that point, but I seem to remember it was leaning towards “no.”  After lunch I took a nap then took her car to be appraised and to get final numbers.  They offered $8,000.00 for her Altima.  I said, “The car might not be worth more than that… but it is to her.  She won't go for that.”  He went back and got the appraisal up to $9,000.00 and I said she MIGHT go for that.  We discussed payments and I had him print out the options for 36, 48, 60, and 66 months with zero, $1,000.00, $2,000.00, and $3,000.00 down.  I said, “They look good to me, all we can do is ask her.”  At this point the general manager, or somebody, came in to talk to me.  He offered to let me take the Optima home so their buyer could look at the Altima on Monday.  I wasn’t comfortable with that and knew mom wouldn’t be either.  I declined.  He asked me to call and ask her.  She declined as well.  We made a tentative appointment to come back tonight between 1830 and 1900 h so the buyer dude can look at the Altima because, according to the GM, “I can almost guarantee he’ll offer $9,500.00 to $10,000.00 for it once he sees it.”  So, after all of that I went home for the day.  All evening I was having second thoughts about the deal.  I felt a little bad trying to talk mom into a car she doesn’t need and trading in a car she really likes.  I decided I was going to stop making arguments FOR the deal.  I wasn’t going to argue AGAINST it, but I wasn’t going to argue for it any more either.  I woke up Sunday morning actually against the deal… but I didn’t tell mom.  I took Fifi to the shop and unloaded those wheels from Barbecue Bob then removed the seats from Lil' Wiggly so I could finish removing the carpet.  When I'd done that, I was dirty and tired enough to call it a day.  I took a bag of trash to the dumpster and then went for a drive.  I burned up a few gallons of gas out west of town on the little back roads I frequent then went back home.  Mom and I went to West Side Café for Chicken Fried Steaks and then I wasted the evening.  This morning mom talked to my brother-in-law and the decision has been made; she is NOT buying a new car.  I feel a bit relieved even though it would be a bitchin’ car to have in the stable.  So, there’s all THAT going on.  Sort of thing.