Car-buying Made Difficult

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My husband and I, like many other folks in Lexington, have been looking for a used vehicle that sips gasoline sparingly.

We planned to allow the college-bound son to use it until he heads out this fall, and then my husband would use it to get back and forth to work.

I truly didn’t think it would take that long, but that was because I had forgotten how frustrating it can be to mix a miser like me with used car salesmen who haven’t noticed how tight the economy is.

Plus, it didn’t help that we started out looking for a small pickup so I could get mulch whenever I wanted it, but decided in the end that we needed a small car more.

Despite the fact I initiated this search in early April and had to drag my husband along with me, by the time it ended Monday, I was just window dressing. It was my job to carry the checkbook and the ink pen.

Somewhere in the past two weeks, the job of finding a car was commandeered by my husband and my son.

And that is how it came to be that my husband and my son were walking the used car lot at a large local dealership Sunday about 9 p.m.

We had researched a car at that dealership and had driven it, but hadn’t arrived at a total both parties could agree on.

A couple of days later, the salesman called back and set terms I could live with.

So, Sunday evening after gorging at a cookout, I sent my husband and back to the dealership to look it over and vote up or down on the car.

About an hour later they returned saying they had both a car.

But the dealership is closed, I said. How did you buy a car?

Seems they were walking around, looking at similar cars, when my husband noticed the dash lights on one car were lighted. Although the motor was not running, someone had left the keys in the ignition and the ignition on.

Now this is where my husband and I parted company.

Had I been with him, I would have turned the car off and left the keys in the driver’s seat, door unlocked.

Not my husband and not my son.

They decided it would be best to lock the car and bring the keys home.

I had visions of killing them.

Why did you do that? I asked. I would never have done that.

“I know,” my husband said. “But it is the Christian thing to do.”

Christian thing? What about reality here?

What about cameras recording two black males fiddling around with a car and taking the key?

Does grand theft auto ring any bells?

“We didn’t steal the car,” my husband said. “We saved it from being stolen.”

He then called the salesman and left a message about the key and who he was.

We waited but heard nothing.

I didn’t sleep much.

The next morning I awoke my husband at 7 o’clock and told him we were going to be at that dealership when it opened, just to give that key back.

He groaned, but we were.

We handed the key over to a manager who had greeted us. He seemed amazed that such a thing had happened and assured me my husband and son were in no trouble.

“No. No,” he said. “We are so grateful for your honesty.”

I think I recall seeing my husband stick his tongue out at me. From that point on, I lost all control.

So full of the joy of being a good Samaritan, my husband began looking at new cars on the lot and found one he liked better than the used car we had intended to buy.

He then called our son, waited for him to get washed and dressed, and took a couple of cars out for a spin.

At no time was I even in the front seat.

The moral of this story is don’t ever let men go out scouting for cars alone. It can lead to sleepless nights and an empty bank account.

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