Time, stress, cash, and new wheels

Check it out.



This is what has been making me - us - crazy for the last couple of weeks.

But it's pretty.



It all started on February 15, the day after Valentine's Day. It was Gary's first Friday off on the new 9/80 schedule. I blame his vanity - if he had not insisted on getting his hair cut at that particular time, he would never have encountered the residual boulder of concrete, a remnant of road construction near us. The car in front of him straddled it - with no shoulder and oncoming traffic, he was forced to do the same.

But our poor little VW Jetta could not handle it - the oil pan was taken out, and to make a long story short, this incident spelled disaster for the Jetta. We called the insurance agent, and the highly qualified receptionist informed us that it would have to be covered under comprehensive, something we do not carry on a 9-year-old car. Sigh.

We knew we'd be buying a new car eventually. But we had a plan. The plan was to buy a car when we were ready to hand the Jetta to the 16-year-old. We had considered it for this year, but decided we'd wait a bit - no need to spend the money right away.

All of these plans changed in a flash. As did all our spare time - not to mention our spare cash. Every minute we could spare was spent looking at cars. This is Gary's car (I get to drive the fancy minivan), so I let him call the shots. He looked at Audis and Toyotas, Volvos and Fords, Mercedes C Class. And kept returning to the Audi. The combination of German engineering and price drew him back - German engineering is available in the Mercedes, but it was tough to justify spending the money - our first house cost only slightly more than what we would spend on a car. We grappled with this issue when we bought our van two years ago - it truly did cost barely less than that first house. Wow.



So we finally made the call. We looked at one Audi on Friday and had decided to get it. Returned Saturday, and they refused to negotiate on price - at all. So we walked. And one of the upsides of living in Houston is the preponderance of car dealers - we visited a different Audi dealership and found the car we wanted at a better price.

Gary conveniently left town, leaving me to handle the final negotiations. Gulp - I am not good at these things. But I did it, and we are the proud owners of a brand new Audi A4. It is beautiful ... and it's mine! As he is not here and couldn't sign anything, it's all in my name. But if he's really good I'll let him drive it. Maybe.

Oh - and it gets better. We called the insurance agent back, and we can file a claim. The Jetta will be repaired, so Alison gets her car after all.

Sweet. Life is sweet.



Sweet.