Rumors of a Visceral Demeanor

My mother would have you believe that she's good at bargaining.

And she'd be right, if she was talking about jewelry. I had the opportunity to witness her approach first hand. She was looking at a display necklace once, and had inquired about the price. She looked at the merchant, an insinuated look of received malice passed her eyes and immediately he dropped the price by 50 buck.

Of course, this story would be more impressive if it were a 50 dollar necklace, but it still wasn't a bad catch, she knew a bad deal when she could see one, and she knew how to pick up on it. I think she paid 120 dollars, but I could be absolutely wrong about that. Not that I want to misrepresent her abilities.

I never abused this property of her existence, holding the idea that she could one day provide a benefit to my then dire financial situation. I kept this secret in a manner that you could liken to Bruce Wayne's secret shame for having been Batman... or any man would hide erectile dysfunction. I knew that I could only bring this ability out for a special situation, and that every abuse of it could only poison future results.

And I knew I had found the Chimera to unleash my secret Beleraphon upon when I had first laid eyes upon the 06 Honda Civic LX. Honda has a policy of hand picking the dealers that pedal their cars to the public, but the Trip Hawkins dealership that I had the unfortunate experience of dealing with maintained that they do not negotiate their prices. At this moment, my epiphany had relieved my financial concerns and I quickly calculated exactly how much it would cost me per month to own this car.

The sum, a bit princely for me, so I set to work on a plan for how much it would take to bring this astronomical payment down to a manageable level; namely, to sell my then current car, a 2002 Fort Taurus SES with less than 48,000 miles on it. If I could obtain a reasonable 7,000 dollars for the sale, I could certainly bring the payment down to under 300 a month. Car in hand, mother in tow, title in purse, I journeyed to the dealership, determined to make this deal work. We sat down at the table and made a graph of numbers that vaguely resembled the life I wished that I could afford.

"That seems a little high to me," I ventured.

"Well, if you could provide a down payment, we could lower the loan amount." The answer I had expected to hear.

"I'd like to trade my car, then."

"If you look at this paperwork, you'll see that the car is worth-" My brain shut down.

What was she saying? This, the only negotiating platform for trading a worthless Taurus for my prized Civic, this document of research on the worth of my unwanted vehicle lay flat on the desk. A trump card, a left bower, if you will, in this euchre game of negotiation played well to early to be useful, immediately trumped by the owner of the right bower... in this case, the dealership.

"We'll have to look at what the car is worth." I was too embarrassed to go on. This line, immediately negating all the research work I had done, had sealed my negotiation's fate.

Ultimately, to skip the rest of the boring part of the story, they had offered me 4 grand for my mule. I had declined and moved down to the Walser Mazda dealership, who at the time, could not provide a Civic (as no Walser dealer sold Honda cars). They had offered me a tidy 6 for the same mule, though that put me a thousand short of my goal payment.

I redacted a new plan and regrouped, vowing that I would strike once again at the heart of my villain. And I did, if you were paying attention, there were pictures a few posts ago.

The Hawkins dealership had since been sold to the Walser Corporation.

We purchased a Civic EX, instead of an LX (a nice upgrade, it was actually about 20,500 equipped MSRP).

And somehow... I received 5,000 dollars for my SES, a thousand more than the dealership in the very same coordinates had insulted me with a year previously.

All of this combined, we have a nicer, newer car, all for under 300 a month.

As a side note: I probably would not have gotten married as quickly had I purchased that car at that time. Take that as you will. Also of interest to me, the car insurance rates are more than 66% cheaper this year, than the year previous, thanks largely to the responsible generation 8 civic drivers representing the last year model.

Now, if only I could find that used car manager from last year, so I can kick him in the yambag...

Then I think I'd thank him.