Our trial is… which car to buy
“It’s Sick,” Daniel Amos, Vox Humana (1983)
Temptation is… that extra dessert
In the land of orange juice
You’re better off with the right kind of shirt
Dearest Rachel –
I think the point of this verse had to do with the fact that we fret over such insignificant things when there’s so much life-and-death stuff going on around us – even if it is halfway around the globe, in general. And, to be fair, they aren’t wrong; this is a truism even now, some forty years since this song came out. We concern ourselves with such insignificant stuff sometimes (and little choices, like “the right kind of shirt,” can make more difference than they probably ought to in certain circumstances, like say, a job interview); and from where you are, literally anything we might worry about down here could be considered ‘insignificant.’
Moreover, we here in the first world in particular get worked up over the choices we have, when we should be celebrating the fact that we even have choices to begin with. We are insanely fortunate to have so many options in life – or any options at all, considering how short a span of time has existed in which we have had things like mass personal transportation. To be sure, these things have been around for all of our lives (and most, if not all, of our parents’), so we see it as having been around since forever, but we have to step back and acknowledge that this hasn’t been the case for very long in comparison to all of time. Meanwhile, there are plenty of places in the world that have little in the way of such choice, or such things are prohibitively expensive for the general public. We should be grateful for what we have, instead of complaining about having to deal with such decisions.
But at the same time, these are big decisions, ones we will live with for years. They may not be as momentous as who to marry, for example, but if there are regrets once the decision is made, there’s really no going back on them for a very long time. You want to make sure you make the right decision.
Such was how I approached the situation of shopping for a vehicle (I try to avoid calling it a ‘car,’ because the Taurus X isn’t one; and by extension, neither are the units I’ve been looking at to replace it with). I didn’t want to just go with the first thing presented to me. Which, being part of a family that always bought Fords, was doubtless going to be a Ford. I thought it was entirely possible that there would be vehicles that would be just as good, and possibly better, by other manufacturers, that I should at least give a fair hearing to.
Now, to be fair – and you could guess both from our history as well as the fact that I referenced it a paragraph or two earlier – I’m not really that picky about how I get around from place to place. Apart from Rocinante, which I owned before we were married, we never owned anything that wasn’t a Ford, or hadn’t been owned by my Dad beforehand (and yes, those two are inextricably related). Whatever he was through with and willing to sell me would be a better deal than what I might get from a dealership directly; anything in the way of colors and features were hardly a concern compared to a decent price on what I knew to be a well-maintained but used vehicle. As Colombo is famous for saying about his own beaten-up heap: “It’s transportation.” Nothing more.
But Dad doesn’t go through cars like he used to in his days as a traveling sales representative. So his cars (or rather, car, as he and Mom are down to one these days since his retirement) don’t get driven as much, and don’t need to be turned over to impress his clients. Not that they – or again, it – doesn’t still get taken care of immaculately, but he has no need to swap out for another at this point. He may not quite be at the point where he won’t invest in green bananas, but buying himself a new car to replace his current, perfectly satisfactory model, would be silly.
So it falls to me to go out and get myself a new car – or at least, buy from a dealership – for the first time in my life, and it’s turning out to be, as Daniel Amos suggested facetiously, more of a trial than I expected it to be. Just… not for the reasons one would typically anticipate.
After all, it’s not as if I have to squeeze every last dime off of the sticker price that I can (not that I’m good at that kind of negotiation anyway, especially against seasoned professionals like car salesmen). Thanks to you and your parents, I don’t even have to take out a loan to pay this thing off; as it stands, any one of the contending vehicles would cost about the same as the trip I took a couple of years ago. If I could afford that, this is no problem. And to some extent, my indifference to any one model ought to be a negotiating tactic in itself; “What can I do to make you pick our car over the competition?” “Eh, I dunno… let me get back to you about that…”
But when we got back from the Ford dealership – in fact, even as we were driving home from the place – I could sense that Dad was not pleased that I was insistent on looking at other models. When I asked him about it a couple of days later, telling him that he seemed hurt by my reticence, he denied it, but did admit that he was surprised that I was relying more on my internet research (particularly the chatbots’ analysis) than his recommendations. For all that car salesmen are know for their pressure tactics, he – whether he was aware of it or not (and I think not) – was, and still is, the greatest weapon in their arsenal.
Though when I asked him about it, I’d done the additional legwork I’d insisted upon, and found – and told him about – more features in the other models that might have been in the Ford, but I hadn’t thought to look for, since my old car didn’t have them. Things like rear and blind-spot cameras that would pop up in the virtual dashboard (we never had a “virtual dashboard” before; how would I know what to expect of one?) or charging ports and plugs for one’s phone (useful both for hands-free calling and navigation, as well as playing music and podcasts while on the road). Now that I know to look for those things, I’m going back to ask about them before just settling on the Ford in the interest of family harmony.
But it does feel like settling for family harmony, rather than actually being allowed to pick out something I want. I’m sure the Ford is fine – it’s certainly more car than we’ve ever had before – but there’s a sense that the other options would have required massive advances in order to convince anyone other than myself that it would be okay for me to actually purchase. And that was the real trial involved in making this decision; the thought that, even if they were more bang for the buck, it wouldn’t be appreciated had I insisted on actually buying one of the other recommended models. It’s a strange place to be in at this age, but it’s what comes of being part of a close-knit family, I guess.
At least the decision’s been made; now, all I have to do is clean out the car, dig up the title and most recent insurance card (the latter of which will probably be part and parcel of cleaning the thing out), get over to the dealership again with my checkbook and have done with this. For which I will ask you to keep an eye on me, and wish me luck; I’m assuredly going to need it.
Letters to Rachel 