Lifetime Supply

When it comes to looking at the world, some people are “glass half full”, and some are “glass half empty”. 

I look at it as “Hey, is the water cold, and is the glass clean?”

A while back, I made the mistake of realizing the three bags of cheap, plastic, flossing devices I bought on Amazon were probably a “lifetime supply”. I floss roughly three or four times a year. Time passes quickly. But I’ve probably got like 70 of these things. You do the math. Not sure, but the last thing I want to do is delve deeper into whether the flossers are going to outlast me. 

Unfortunately, the floss thing put a whole new “thought category” in my head. The “lifetime supply” thought is both grim and reassuring. On one hand, you’ll probably never have to buy said item again! Woo! OTOH, the reason is a bit unfortunate. 

In fact, I currently have no other “lifetime supplies” that spring to mind– that’s good, because even though I’m sure I have some, I’d rather not dwell on them.

But now we had to buy a car. The old Saturn was falling apart, and at this point, we were throwing good money after bad, so a change needed to be made.

My hope was that it would hold up well enough to get Matthew through college, and it did, although the pandemic eased the pressure on the last half year with the lockdown. Hey, turns out COVID *was* good for something! 

But after 22 years and only 50,000 miles, it was dying from a thousand cuts that would cost me yet another thousand dollars. It’s on its third or fourth exhaust system, second set of tires at least, had work done on most other elements in the past, and still bears the marks of the front quarter panel smash in from six or seven years ago. The cost to repair it *then* exceeded the cost of the vehicle itself. So it had to go.

We couldn’t have three of us and one car, because even though I don’t drive much, I do need a car once in a while, and junior does too, here and there. 

Buying a car, in my experience, has been a nightmare as often as not. Buying the Saturn was the only TRULY pleasant car buying experience I ever really had. And Saturn no longer exists. The Honda Odyssey wasn’t that bad an experience, but I also was in a good financial situation at the time to pay cash for it. Hmmm, as I think back, I think maybe I only had one really bad experience buying a car. 

It was 1999, and amidst all the prerequisite partying we had to do like it *was* that year, I needed a new car. I think my old Honda Accord was on its way out, and I was in the mood for a VW Beetle. They had made a stylistic resurgence. Unfortunately, after hours negotiating with the salesman, with him pulling all the old tricks “okay, I’ll have to run that price by my boss”, we finally made a deal, they were transferring my plates from the old Accord to the new Beetle, paperwork was produced. Then I noticed they tried to stick me with an extra that cost an extra grand. 

NIAGARA FALLS!  (Look it up, kids)

This slimy SOB tried to pull a fast one at the last second, and thought I wouldn’t notice. I said the deal was off, got my plates switched back and away I went. 

To Saturn, and a lovely experience. No negotiating, just tell them what you want, they give a whole price list, boom. The down side was of course having to make car payments, and I hate being on the hook, so I paid it off in six months, instead of four years. 

Honestly, the Beetle deal put a very sour taste in my mouth though, and the upcoming new purchase was stressing me out big time, because of it.

Enter, the blog, a friend that serves to open ones’ mind.

Really, this blog helped me get into a good head space regarding having to buy a new car. I started remembering just how lucky I’d been in the past, when it came to acquiring cars. I’ve been very fortunate. So I ended up doing a mental 180 on the whole thing, thanks to this entry.

In fact, the whole thing went surprisingly smoothly. I figured we’d be laboring, sweating and miserable, traveling to several places to find a good deal. No, it actually took four hours total. Linda went online, found a used 2017 Honda Civic at the local Honda dealer, with only 29,000 miles on it with a nice price. We made an appointment, checked it out, did a test drive, had to wait on hour for the finance guy to finish up another client, wrote a check and boom. Home into the garage. Drives like a dream.

And the Saturn? Donated it. Yeah, to the annoying Kars4kids place with the horrible song. But hey, if there are other places who will come and pick the thing up in 24 hours, no muss, no fuss, well, these other places certainly didn’t have very good placement with search engines, because Kars4kids was first in line. And, if by some miracle, they sell it to someone, I get a tax deduction up to $500.

There’s no way in hell they get more than $50 for the thing, but you never know. 

But hey, there you go, a shiny Civic in the garage. This one will actually get driven LESS than the Saturn, so I expect to get at LEAST 30 years out of that thing. It might be the last car I ever have to buy!

Hey, lifetime supply of car! Woohoo!