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Not long after lunch yesterday I heard back from the dealership that my Honda was finally ready. I drove home from work, picked up T–, and we drove out there together to pick it up. The air conditioner repair (which turned out to be a computer repair) ended up costing just over $1,000.

While we were out there, we checked out the used cars on their lot. They had an ’08 Saturn Vue listed for a thousand bucks cheaper than the ’07 we’d spent all night Tuesday arguing over, and three others of the vehicles we’re interested in well within our price range. We had ten minutes with the salesman (before heading off to our traditional Wednesday Night Dinner), and in that time he was more useful than the guy at Hudiburg had been over the course of two hours.

We left without buying again, though (obviously), and headed to Arby’s to meet K– and N– (who have family in town) and D– (who has no excuse). My sister and her family are out of town on vacation.

Nobody showed up, though. Lame. Still, we had a quiet little dinner, and then I went home while T– and AB went to church. I’d intended to spend the time working out, but when I pulled into the garage I spotted T–‘s old computer desk (that we’d moved out there when N–‘s mom brought us a new bed for AB), and realized it would have to be dealt with before we got the Honda home. So I spent my time on that.

We have a work area in the back corner of the garage, set apart from the two car bays, but it was primarily occupied by two window A/C units we pulled out of the Tulsa house (and never figured out how to get rid of). I spent forty minutes last night trying to rearrange them into a configuration that would allow me to park the desk on top of them, in that back corner, to leave enough room for the cars.

It was exhausting, hot work, but once I was done it actually freed up a lot of space, and left us with a real work surface instead of the uneven faces of the derelict machines we’d had before. So that’s kind of nice.

Then T– brought AB home and put her to bed, and we watched some Flight of the Conchords until bedtime.

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.

You know that old Chinese saying/proverb/curse about living in interesting times? If I had to put Western words to it today, I’d say happiness usually exists in direct proportion to the dullness of blog posts.

So, yeah, I’ve got a story to tell.

I drove my boss’s spare BMW home from work yesterday, worked out briefly, and then took my wife out to dinner while my friend D– stayed home with AB. We went to Wendy’s (romantic) because T– wanted a Frosty and I was very slightly curious about their new boneless buffalo wings (and exactly how they would differ from their timeworn chicken nuggets). Unfortunately business was slow and the staff was either stoned or sleepy, because they managed to get every aspect of our order wrong.

The buffalo wings come in one of three flavors, and when I tried to tell him which one I wanted, he said I could have the “bold buffalo” sauce. I didn’t ask for bold buffalo sauce, he just told me with a baffling confidence that that was what I was going to order, and then he typed it into the machine. Then he gave us our drinks and we found a table to wait for the food. My Dr Pepper tasted a little funny — too much soda, not enough syrup — but that happens sometimes, so I let it go.

Then the guy behind the register called me up to the counter to say, “Hey man, I know you wanted the bold buffalo sauce, but I accidentally put Asian zing sauce on. That okay?” I just stared at him for a moment, trying to formulate an answer, and he said, “These are the last ones we have ready, and it’d take a long time to make some new ones.” I should have thought that all the way through, but instead I told him Asian zing was fine.

T– got a chicken sandwich, so there were a total of about nine pieces of chicken among us at the table, and when our meal showed up, every one of them was scorched beyond reason. The fries were so undercooked as to be soggy, though. I could have just said, “We went to Wendy’s, and it was disappointing,” and nobody alive would’ve been surprised by that statement, but the sheer level to which they failed to fulfill their obligation as a provider of food was quite astonishing.

Halfway through our dinner (yes, we ate it), T– said, “This is not a very promising start to our evening.”

It wasn’t meant to be a date night, so much as we left AB with D– so we could go car shopping. I’d spent a significant portion of the day shopping online, and found a really great deal on a low-end 2007 Saturn Vue at Hudiburg Chevrolet in Midwest City. That’s a big forty-minute drive for us, but that’s also precisely the car T– wants, and the price was right, so it was worth checking out. We thought we would give it a look over in person, maybe see how comfortable it was inside, then drive up to Edmond to check out the used cars on the lot where they’re working on our Honda. There’s a couple used lots near there, so we could get in some good browsing, but we wanted to check out that Vue as a baseline.

So after our disappointing dinner we got on the highway, and took it to another highway, and finally ended up at the dealership around seven. We rolled around the lot a bit, spotted a couple Vues (a 2008 and a 2007, just like I’d seen in the online inventory), so we parked and walked over to the ’07 to check it out. It wasn’t the one we’d seen online, though. 3,000 fewer miles on it, and $5,000 more on the list price.

Before we’d totally figured that out, though, the salesman snagged us. He showed us the car, pulled it out and cajoled us into taking a test drive, and he did a good job pointing out all the great things about the car, but nearly all of them were amenities and options that we didn’t need (and which explained why the same year, same model, was so much more expensive than the one we’d come to see). We asked him a couple times if he could show us the cheaper one, because we couldn’t find it, but he’d just say, “Well, we’ll see what we can do for you.”

So we got back from the test drive and he had us park next to the office building, then took us in and sat us down at his desk. At this point we’ve looked at exactly one vehicle, and it’s out of our price range. We knew this, and we’d made sure he knew this. That was a pretty poor showing for the half hour we’d already spent at the lot, but once he had us in the chairs in his office, that was the end of our night.

He went through the whole song and dance, striking up friendly conversation, getting to know us, learning AB’s name and asking about her, telling us all about his fiance, so that we felt like there was a real connection there (so we’d feel bad about walking out on him). He burned up time, spending forty minutes to fill out a one-page form while he chatted casually, so we’d feel like we had a real time investment in this purchase. He asked me what monthly payment we were looking for, discarding out of hand any discussion of total price (and total new debt that came with it). Unfortunately I didn’t come prepared with a monthly rate, so I had to name something on the spot. I said $200 to $250, and he didn’t even try to get close. He didn’t even take anything off the sticker price. Just came back with a calculation on the $17,000 that it would cost us either $350 or $300 a month, depending whether we could put a thousand down.

We told him no, that was way, way more than the number I’d given him (which turned out to be too big a number anyway), and that this car really probably wasn’t the right one for us. He said, “Nah, nah, give me a minute, I’ll see what I can do.” And went back in the room and pantomimed an argument with his manager for us and came back with a thousand bucks off the sticker price. We told him no again, and we had to get home because the babysitter was ready to leave, and he said, “Well, just give me a minute, I’ll see what I can do.” And came back with a lower monthly payment on the same total price (so he was just extending our term by a few more years), and when we told him no that time, he said, “All right, I’ve just got to get some paperwork taken care of.”

Then he brought out his manager who was all set to put us through the same charade again. He started into a spiel about 80- and 90-month car loans, and I told him outright, “We are not walking out of here with more than $13,000 of new debt.” We’d actually showed up hoping to talk the $11,200 car we’d seen online down to around $9,000, but this one was a nicer vehicle. By a lot. If he’d come down to thirteen, I probably would have caved.

He just shook his head and said, “That car will never be less than 13. I can get your monthly payments down to $225….”

And that’s when T– said, “Sorry, we’ve got to go. We have a babysitter waiting for us.” And we left.

We got back to the house at nine o’clock. That was our entire evening — one-sided haggling over a car we kept insisting we weren’t interested in. T– had to drop me off and then drive up to Edmond anyway, because she had an errand to run. We’d planned to take care of that while shopping the lots in Edmond, but we never got to do any of that.

It was an aggravating evening. Super-friendly salespeople aren’t great for the social anxiety, either, I can tell you.

Anyway, I got home and spent half an hour putting AB to bed, then sort of just vegged out on the couch while T– watched Flight of the Conchords.

Oh! I did put some finishing touches on my Memory Game (the one Toby helped me write), and it’s now available for testing if any of your are interested. Feedback is required (and tips are welcome).

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.

The Saturn is dead.

I got home yesterday evening and after complaining to T– about the sorry state of my life for half an hour (car troubles), I went to the office to work out and she took AB to pick up some Taco Bueno for supper. Both of those things proved satisfactory.

Then AB took a bath and went to bed, and I started up a game of Civ while T– and I finished off Important Things with Demetri Martin and started over again on Flight of the Conchords. It was a pleasant evening.

This morning I heard from our mechanic, and the Saturn would cost $5,263.18 to repair. Its Blue Book value, even after the repairs would be $750. So, yeah, that car’s never coming home again.

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.

Saturday
Quite in defiance of my blog post, last Saturday turned busy. T– went to her brother Matt’s to get some advice from a veteran painter, and Karla and John went out shopping for dinner supplies and then picked T– up at Matt’s and took her to her other brother Chris’s place to give some advice as a veteran interior designer.

While they were doing that, I was watching AB back at the house. She woke up from her nap and wanted to play, so we did spinning, and we explored Dora’s dollhouse and we played the Memory game on my laptop, and she watched my marauders invade the Mongolian island chain. All good fun.

When the others got home, we had homemade ribs for dinner, and they were fall-off-the-bone perfect. Then T– and her parents went downstairs to watch a movie and I stayed upstairs to comfort AB whenever the (very loud, very nearby) fireworks startled her awake. That was meant to be a ten- to fifteen-minute assignment, but it ended up taking three hours. When I wasn’t comforting her I was playing Civ in the comfy chair, though, so no complaints.

Sunday
Sunday morning I skipped church. They were going to a new Chinese place for lunch, so I grabbed some McDonalds and read a couple more chapters of Click (and, in the process, figured out the entire plot of a new Ghost Targets book), and then met up with them to head over to Matt and Amy’s place for the birthday party.

Her family mostly lives close together, and it’s not a small clan, so birthdays come with some frequency among them. As a pragmatic choice, they’ve taken to celebrating via one big birthday party every month, in which they fete everybody whose got a birthday that month and have done with it. T–‘s is the 24th, so she was one of the guests of honor.

Everyone had a great time, but before too long it was time for us to get on the road. Our cats were at home hungry, and AB was ready for a nap. So we said our goodbyes and got on the road.

Umm…I didn’t mention this concerning the trip up on Friday, because T–‘s false labor got top billing, but on our way to Wichita, about halfway there, the car started making a noise. I described it as a baseball card in the spokes, but it was a sort of rapid, light ticking/clattering. Before we left Wichita T–‘s dad noticed the sound while we were in the driveway and he suggested we get some more oil in it. The car has always had a pretty bad oil leak, so I wasn’t too surprised at his suggestion. I think I missed the urgency in it, though.

We drove home with that same ticking sound there the whole way, and we discussed the need to get the Saturn in to our mechanic as soon as possible. That “possible” was limited by the fact that our actual, reliable car is still sitting in the shop at the Honda dealer, though, as you will recall. That’s the only reason we were in the Saturn for the Wichita trip at all!

Anyway, we made it home safe (in case any of you were holding your breath). We stopped at Pizza Hut and grabbed some dinner to take home, and then while I was eating I got a message from D– asking if I was available to go see a movie, and against my better judgment I said yes.

We saw The Hangover, which has been getting incredible reviews, and I’ll call them well-deserved. It was hilarious. It’s raunchy and highly inappropriate, but it captures a certain slice of what it’s like to be a guy, and present that in with a bunch of slapstick that had me rolling.

But, yeah, that had me out late. I got home after 11, crawled into bed, and completely failed to fall asleep. Somehow I started thinking about the Sleeping Kings series, and started considering Golden Age from a different angle, and couldn’t stop that train of thought. I was rearranging chapters and stamping out the outline for hours. I woke up at six this morning with the feeling that I’d never really fully fallen asleep.

Monday
Or, in other words, I woke up tired. I got up, though, and got around, and then headed to work. I had high hopes to get the Honda back today, but that was hope without much faith. I decided to go on in to work, and wait until the Honda guy said “come pick it up” before starting into my vacation time.

It’s a thirty-minute drive from my house to work every morning. I made it about twenty-two minutes, to the last exit from the highway, and as I was rolling up the exit ramp the Check Oil light flickered on, fluttered, and then all the lights on my dash came on.

Because the car was dead.

That was halfway up the ramp, and my inertia carried me to the top of it, and then back down the other side to settle to a stop just shy of the traffic light, in the middle of three lanes of busy commuters on MacArthur. I spent a frantic twenty seconds trying to find the button for the hazard lights, while the traffic light turned green and people behind me started honking.

Then I set to the task of pushing the car through the intersection before the light changed, without getting run over. An oh-so-generous stranger saw my plight, parked at the curb, and came back to help me push the car through the intersection and then into a parking lot on the other side of it. So at least there was that.

Remember, though, that this is my backup car. And by all indication, I just ran the engine out of oil, which is pretty much a fatal error. The ignition couldn’t start the car back up (and when the AAA guy tried it later, with jumper cables attached, the starter started smoking, so that’s pretty definite). The car’s got 240,000 miles on it, so none of this is a huge surprise, but it’s no fun.

Luckily I have some amazing coworkers. I called up my supervisor to tell him what had happened, and he immediately offered to come pick me up (and do any necessary ferrying the follow-up process required). I came to the office, made some calls, and eventually arranged for a tow truck to meet me back at the parking lot later in the morning.

Then I had trouble finding my supervisor to let him know the new plans, so I stopped by Irene’s office (she’s my Documentation Team Lead, which is one of my types of boss), and when I was done catching her up to speed she offered to loan me a car. My cup overflows.

My supervisor was still nowhere in sight, so she drove me up to the parking lot (and the AAA guy burned up my starter), and then he took the Saturn to our mechanic up in Edmond, and Irene took me to her place to pick up the extra car. Then she went back to work, and I drove home to drop off some stuff for T– and try to sort out the car situation.

So the Saturn’s now at K&C (the same guys who tried to fix the Honda before sending me to the dealer), and the Honda’s at the dealer, and I’m driving a loaner BMW. I did hear back from Honda while I was at it, and they say it was the most expensive of the three possible options we’d discussed, but I can have my car back tomorrow.

There’s catastrophes and there’s blessings, all intermingled. Of them all, I’m most excited about the new Ghost Targets book. And most concerned about the changes to Golden Age. And that, my dear friends, is how you can tell I’m a writer.

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.