Alrighty then. I got my sleep. All four hours of it. Or almost that much. heehee. :)

So, back to documenting what happened. I believe I left off on the point at which we were looking around the dealership at the available cars. I had found a nice attractive blue one, with just the basics, and at a good price. We took it for a test drive.

Fun fun fun. While my test drive was nothing in comparison to the adventures of the mighty Scott, I liked it more and more as I went. Good handling, good accellerating, good cornering, good everything! :)

But my evaluation was nothing in comparison with what my father did when he took the wheel. I have never witnessed such insanity from him. Not even trips to the farm could match this. lol. Speeding it up and then suddenly slamming on the brakes, cornering at extremely high velocities, making split second lane changes. Yikes! The fact that the car weathered his contortions without even being phased only increased my confidence. :)

Back at the dealership, with nerves calming back down again, I was definitely interested in buying. But my nerves wouldn't be calm for long. lol.

The dealer offered us what looked to me like a reasonable price. What followed were a couple hours of insanity in which my father managed to get them to reveal all sorts of info that most customers never hear about unless the dealer is desperate to sell. I mean, damn!

I hate negotiating. I am lousy at it. But even if I were good at it, I wouldn't like it. Anyone who has been reading long enough to remember my salary negotiation for dummies knows this. During those two days, I was an absolute nervous wreck. But my dad.... he knows how to do it. Amazing.

So anyway, at the point at which I was all ready to say "Deal!", he continued to press. I really didn't want to have to drag this out over days. I mean, what he had already negotiated looked really good, but he didn't want to sign on it until next week. Well, the car dealer, being a car dealer, wanted to make a deal that day. As did I. Foolish of me? Perhaps.

I just hate protracted hassles. To me, it would be worth paying a little more money simply to save myself the hassle of having to go through the same thing at five different shops around town. I suppose if one enjoys haggling and visiting car dealerships, it would be a different story. I don't. The part I enjoy is when it's over and I have the goddamn car.

Well, my dad, being the cosigner, did eventually find a way to make everybody happy. (Good ole dad! :) He told the dealer that the price that had been negotiated sounded good, but we would need to shop around town for a few days to make sure. That this was probably the best deal, but we needed to be sure. OR.... OR we would buy it TODAY at such-and-such even lower price (he named the figure) and consider it a done deal. I didn't think they were going to go for it.

They went for it.

Boom. I let out a visible sigh of relief. And excitement. I was having trouble believing that this had actually happened. I'm still not sure I do. I might have to put on some clothes, go outside, and make sure it's actually out there. That I'm not just sitting here typing the contents of some really vivid dream. Wouldn't that suck? :)

Then it was time for the paperwork. We were pretty much planning to finance through his credit union. The dealer financing was an interum step.

But here's where we get into more fun. They've got extended warrenties they want to sell you, life and disability coverage (in case you get in some serious accident, you don't have to pay off the loan), theft insurance, security shit, paint coating, and blah blah blah. And the wierd part: They tie the interest rate on the financing to which package of junk you get. Get more of the extras (most or all of which is probably overpriced), you get a lower interest rate.

And here's the other wacky thing: When you walk in to do the paperwork, they present a selection of different options for such things. And not a single one of the pre-calculated figures displayed is a normal person would expect: Just the car, thank you.

"You can get this-this-and-this for this price, this-this-and-this for this other price, or this-this-and-this for this lower price. Most of our customers go for this option."

Yeah, well most of your customers are idiots. (The ranks of which I would have certainly joined, had I not had someone so much more in the know about it than I.) BTW, the financing guy also made it very clear that the real strength of the deal was in my dad's side of the credit. Without his signature, it probably wouldn't have happened.

After much discussion about it, debate, long pauses, in which we discussed all the ways we could wriggle it to make sure the financing happened right, coupled with the likely possibility that we would refinance with the credit union in a week. More long pauses.

Then, the guy brought out the other book. From it, he offered us a rate from the manufacturer that was a HELL of a lot lower that we would have gotten ANYWHERE else, including the credit union. The catch: Give up the manufacturer's rebate we were going to get (which I wouldn't have known about at all except for the fact that it was brought out in earlier negotiations), and buy the nice big extended warranty (0 deductable, 100000 miles, six years. This part of it actually sounded like it might be worth having, although I wouldn't have wanted it had it not been coupled with this new super-low rate). We could leave off the other junk if it wasn't wanted.

Payments MUCH lower, AND an extra warranty. Hmmmm. These overall payments weren't much higher than the credit union financing would have been. Plus it included the warranty, and oil changes for all eternity. (my dad made sure to ask if they have a place to get it changed nearby. There is one not too far. Cool!) It sounded good to me. But being the idiot that I am, I wanted the opinion of one wiser. He thought it sounded good too.

We inked it, with me signing and initialling most of the stuff, and him putting his signature next to mine in places where it was needed. I wrote a nice large check for the down payment (the happy bank account depletion card will have to be used much more sparingly for a while now), and the car was ready.

My heart pounding, I got in, turned the ignition, checked the mirrors, adjustments, guages, and drove it out of the lot. Awesome.

The drive home was awesome. Freeway speed. Ya barely even notice it, and you're up to 80. Watch out for them speed traps! ;) I resisted the urge to fiddle too much with the radio controls, and instead contented myself with just cranking the volume nice and loud. Too much fun.

Amazing. I still can't believe it. After arriving home, I took the whole family for a ride, and out to dinner on my treat. I figured there wasn't enough I could do to repay them, especially my dad.

After that, we came home, I did the email thing, typed a rambling here, and was planning to unwind myself with a little quality tv. Well, the quality tv thing didn't quite turn out, but I was (and am) too overjoyed to care. Ok, maybe care just a little (a Xenite with a car is still a Xenite). But not enough to get really mad about it and flame the tv station or anything. :)

THIS has got to be the top entry to date in the "ways to make weekends suck less" department. I really owe it all to my dad. And, of course, a couple of friendly emailers. :)

Well, given that my swap is just about full again, and the tale has been told, I think this pretty much wraps up yet another extra-long weekend activity report. :)

Time to grab breakfast, and venture outside again to make sure I haven't just awakened out of a really wacky dream. Woohoo! :)