Car Shopping for the Mainstream

We spent most of last weekend car shopping, because our Fix Or Repair Daily was having it's guts checked in the garage. Again.

Clearly we look like we don't have two pennies to rub together (true) because we didn't get the hard sell once. We're looking for a used Toyota Highlander, leather, for about $40. Strangely we didn't find one. We did see lots and lots of Highlanders though. In fact, parental note, do not put your squirming toddler down in a dealership crammed with tightly-packed SUVs because very soon you'll realize that you can hear her, you just can't see her, and how the chuff do you find a two-foot-high two-year-old in a maze of cars? Don't yell 'Anna, chocolate' because then she'll think, 'hey great, chocolate, ermmm, where the chuff are my parents, *small panicked breath* 'Momma Momma' (escalating in panic), 'where's my chocolate' *panicked wail*. Do get on your hands and knees amongst the oil-stains in those white jeans that you thought would make you look like a wealthy potential customer, and try and spot the tiny striped leggings zig-zagging haphazardly through the tires. Then lie there and guide your husband with armed-forces precision directions like 'she's by the beige car, to the left of the champagne car heading towards the off-white car’. Good times.

Interesting aside (no, really). I used to work for a production company and we handled voice-overs for Toyota ads. I know, you're gripping the edge of your seats aren't you....., well you should know that it's just about impossible to get a Southern California voice-over to not say 'Tayoda' instead of Toyota. Try it you surfer-dudes you. You'll say it right the first time, but the third time it comes up, Tayoda I guarantee it. We had to write it out phonetically on a piece of paper and wave it in front of them.

Toyota also listed their Camry-buyers in their in-house memos as 'vanilla'. Nice. I'm sure Highlanders are listed as 'mainstream choice for dull suburbanites fighting the mini-van image'. Sold!

We didn’t buy anything because:

1. We don’t have any money
2. LK entered every dealership saying ‘we’re just looking, not buying, I’m not going to be rushed in to this’ - because we have one car in the shop, he’s biking to work and the other two-door twenty year old car has a multitude of warning lights flashing and we’re just fine for transportation please, we’re here to look not touch thankyou very much, we’re just fine putting a 25lb toddler in a car seat with no rear doors thankyou Mr. Chiropractor.
3. None of the ‘green-tag, 0% financing, $1500 cash back, special reduction zone, this weekend only sales seemed to apply to us. Farging bastages.
4. The Found On Road Dead only cost a few hundred to fix not a few thousand so lets just keep it til it gets really interesting. Russian roulette anyone? Sounds like fun.
   

I’d like a new car though. I’ll be working LK with my wily wiles so I suppose you'll be seeing me in that 1990 Honda Accord for many years to come.....