Hanging Out with Model-T

Yesterday I had a moment of temporary insanity.

I offered my truck-loving husband an opportunity for just the two of us to go look at trucks.

I think "look" means something different to men than to women.

Needless to say he was like a kid in a candy store.

We were doing fine at the dealership until we got too close to the building. There was an area of orange cones separating the customer parking from the vehicles that are for sale. We started out on the opposite end, so we were heading right for the cones. My husband spotted a salesman coming our way and said, "You are getting too close to the cones! They saw us!"

Crap.

Before I knew it, and no matter how hard I tried to ignore him, Carlos was introducing himself. He asked for my name, and I believe my exact words were "We are not buying a truck today. My husband is over there. Go talk to him."

Nothing like being up front about your expectations in your relationships.

My husband actually told Carlos his real name and started talking to him about trucks.

Crap again.

Since I handle most of the haggling in our household ( I believe the other term is called Mother) and am quite comfortable doing so, I usually handle the haggling outside the home as well.

So as Carlos is telling us all the incentives, I keep repeating we are NOT buying a truck until next year.

Let me just mention here that Carlos is seriously the coolest car salesman we have ever met.

Like when I asked him to pay off our credit card debt so we could buy a truck from him now, he was all like, ok. Sure thing. Do you take a check?

Then I asked him what the incentives were next year, knowing full well Ford only updates incentives every month. I was just testing him, see, because he is new. As a matter of fact, he has worked there for only two weeks and sold several F-150s last month.

Impressive.

Carlos answered my question about next year's incentives (after he realized I was on my insanity kick and totally played along) by telling us that next year, Ford is giving away F-150s.

You heard it here first, folks.

And D and I get first pick because Carlos is going to call us right away when this occurs.

So, apparently we were laughing too much and Carlos' boss came over to get us focused.

D and I really dislike focus when it is just the two of us with no kids. We prefer fits of laughter as if you are complete idiots, especially in public places. We don't get to experience that often...um, I mean EVER.

So it is safe to say D and I were elated when Bossman left.

Since we were NOT buying a truck, I felt I should make good use of our time and get to know Carlos.

We agreed to let Carlos take us to another part of the car lot and show us MORE trucks.

On our road trip, we learned he is from a family of 6 also, and has twin sisters. He thought growing up in a big family was cool, but they about drove his mom crazy. He is originally from New York, but likes the south for the cost of living and the weather. Oh, and he used to be in the Army too.

We felt sorry for Carlos having to work for Bossman,and we were afraid he was going to get in trouble if we didn't at least go in and sit down to let him "run some numbers".

Plus, as D said, "These are some great deals."

Did I mention "crap?"

So Carlos ran the numbers. As we were sitting there, a woman came on the intercom and called Chris to the shower.

Say What?

Oh, Chris to the Tower.

Much better.

Once Carlos took "The Numbers" to the Boss, we did not see him again.

For hours.

We were re-directed to Zoe, who has 6 names and it was super cool when she said them in her native Spanish. It was like a constant rolling "rrrrrrrr".

We liked Zoe too. She has 3 houses, a brother-in-law who breaks her tools, and was a carpenter in the Army. I told her all I knew about real estate (which is basically nothing) and told her she should get to know Donald Trump. And Zoe works as a car salesperson because she did not have anything better to do. She was bored.

We later saw Carlos again and told him playfully that we were angry that he ditched us. He told us that he wasn't allowed to talk to us.

WHAT?

It seems that because we were having a good time, and we were being nice to Carlos, his Boss people felt he was not the right salesman for us.

D and I were pretty ticked. Mainly because Carlos was being punished for being The Best Car Salesman Ever.

I mean, we liked Zoe, but we started with Carlos. It just seemed unfair.

But we did tell Carlos that D is running for President of the United States when he retires, and he could be the campaign manager if he wanted to.

I think by then Carlos will be the President of the Ford Motor Company, so he probably won't take us up on it.

As Zoe got the truck cleaned up for us, the one we picked out, drove, haggled and signed for, all I could think was "How did this happen?"

My only explanation is I had a moment of temporary insanity.

Oh, and just as a side note, I made it through 7 hours, two salespeople (Carlos and Zoe), two Bosspeople, and the finance guy without telling anyone my name.

Because I have lofty aspirations like that. It's all about setting goals and meeting them.