Boom!

Buying a car is not a process that I enjoy…at all.  I am not a great negotiator, and my wife and I tend to be impulse buyers.  This time, we promised we were going to do our homework before we bought anything.  Her car was old and needed to be replaced, but it wasn’t an emergency.  I spent weeks looking up cars online, trying to decide whether we wanted to buy or lease., and what car we liked.  We finally narrowed it down to a few cars, and on a day off, we got to the dealer to test drive a couple.  The hard part about this is that we need someone to watch the kids, so we don’t have unlimited time.  After we went to a couple of dealerships, and test drove a couple, we did the responsible thing and walked away.  Of course now we were back where we started, and needed to find a day to do this again.  Tough to spend five hours, with nothing to show for it.

A week later, my father-in-law helped us out by staying with the kids while we went back to the dealership.  Ugh!  We got there around noon, test drove a couple more cars, and finally decided on the one we wanted.  Now the worst part, negotiating.  Apparently the dealers don’t haggle as much as they used to, so we had to get creative to get the cost to what we wanted.  Six hours later, we finally walked out with a brand new car for her.  We even felt pretty good about the deal we got.  Everything was great!

Fast forward a whole two days, and I was actually allowed to drive it.  I had an early dentist appointment, then had to pick up my son from my sister’s house.  On our way home, I pulled up to a red light that I had to turn right on.  The traffic coming from the left was coming over a hill, so I crept up a little to see if a car was coming.  Just as I stopped….BOOM!!! I get rear ended in my wife’s brand new car. I checked on my son, and then lets just say a few choice words came flying out of my mouth.  I turned right, and stupidly without thinking of where I was, I pulled over.  That lasted about thirty seconds as about five cars flying over the hill almost completely destroyed the car.  Needless to say, I pulled into a near by parking lot.  I get out still completely furious.  The guy that hit me apologized over and over.  He said he thought that I went, but judging by the fresh cigarette in his mouth, I am guessing he may have been lighting that up and wasn’t paying attention.

Either way, it was an accident.  I assessed the damage and realized it wasn’t too bad.  Still sucks, but luckily he didn’t completely wreck it.  Now for the worst part, calling my wife to let her know her brand new, two day old car just got hit.  She was amazingly cool and understanding about it.  Way nicer than I would have been.  After we exchanged information, we went on our way. I probably stupidly didn’t call the cops, but I tend to try and find the good in people.  Luckily, he was a good guy, and by the time we even called to file the claim, he already had.  Phew!

Today, she had to take it into the shop to get her car fixed.  Since it will be in there for multiple days, she had to get a rental.  They had one car to offer.  One.  When I say car, I actually mean a gigantic, bright blue F-150.  Awesome!  She was glad that I was excited about it, because as soon as she got home, she handed me the keys and told me this was mine for the weekend.  I am guessing I won’t be driving her new car for a while.