Never Say No to a Buyer...

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After buying this really cool Volvo C-70 convertible, I got to thinking about it and I really don't drive that much anymore and I do like the Volvo a lot better than my 2004 Toyota Corolla with 135K miles on it, in spite of the fact that the Toyota had literally been trouble free since I bought it on 4/17/2007 with 115,433 miles on it. I drove it quite a bit when gas prices sky rocketed towards $4 around that time. I drove it a lot, I loaned it out to friends a lot and just stored it a lot. The only problem I ever had with the car was that really that of my image. I'd see men my age driving Mercedes and BMW's, even a few antiques in Cadillacs. My image, driving the same car as a college kid, didn't really make me happy, but I was enjoying 30 MPG.

Mostly on a whim, I put a free ad on Cars.com and started getting calls. One gentleman showed up on Saturday morning, telling me he was looking for a car for his son that was about to turn 16. They are my least favorite people to sell cars to because for whatever reason, they NEVER buy. They're too indecisive about what their offspring even likes. Not to mention Mom really makes all of their decisions. So I entertained him and he wouldn't leave until he dug a business card out of his back seat, while his rather large rear end was directly in my face. Not a pretty sight. Upon entering my garage and waiving goodbye to Mr. Businessman, I tossed his card into the garbage. Think about it, what was I going to call him about? Possibly a membership to the gym?

Last evening, at about 7 PM, a young man of Middle East origin called and his name was Danial. He told me that he was new in the area, did not know his way around and was residing in Tempe. Sounds like an ASU student to me. He told me he would be over around 2 PM and would call if there were any changes or if his friend/ride got lost. At about 1:45, the car and I were both ready. I took the trouble of rinsing off the engine compartment, as it was kind of dusty and I then took the trouble of rinsing myself off, since I was kind of dusty too. That's when the phone rang and it was a new woman calling about my Toyota and she wanted to know if she could come right over, since she lived in a place called Surprise, Arizona and she felt it was about 30 minutes away. I told her not until later, since I already had an appointment with a young man that was due here about 2 or so. I gave her the address and instructed her to call about 3 and hung up.

That's when the light bulb lit over my head and I thought, "Gee, a woman just called and wanted to come right over and look at my car to possibly buy it and I just told her no, because a kid named Danial was due here. I immediately called her back and said I was under the influence of a new mystery drug that caused me to turn away perspective buyers because I was actually going to believe the word of a kid, that wasn't sure if he could find Glendale. I told her to come right over and if she has to wait 5 minutes, I'll be sure to give her lemonade.

At 2:45 a Lexus pulled up and two ladies got out and approached me. The first lady introduced herself as Erlinda and the second her apparent "partner" was Cindy. Both very charming, both capable of both finding Glendale and buying my car. They took it for a long ride and returned with smiles, always a good sign. They asked me if I was set on my price and of course I said no, I'll accept more! (That's my car salesman joke.) She asked me if I'd accept $500 less than I was asking and I acted like I was really thinking, but way down deep, I knew I would. I replied by saying, "How about I split it with you"? She lit up in 3 different shades of "YES" and then looked at the driver of the Lexus and said, is that okay? A hearty nod was giving we had a deal!

It appeared that they were a little longer getting to my house because they went to the trouble of stopping at the bank and getting cash. I owned that car for 4 years almost to the day and drove it 20,000 miles, exactly. Danial never did call of show up! Whew!!!