H*** has frozen over... pigs are flying... the moon's turned to purple cheese. Or what have you.*

*Side note: Go here for similar idioms in 36 different languages.
3/6/11

I got a new car, folks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A newish (2006), modern, clean, Saturn Vue SUV with a V6, heated seats, traction control, tinted windows, CD player, OnStar that gets 25 mpg in mint condition, etc. that we got from a real, live dealership! HOLY MOSES.

After 14 years of driving random clunkers, and especially after our death spin on the slushy freeway a couple weeks ago in Mark's 12-year old featherweight Chevy Prizm, I was ready for something better. You know, with air bags, traction control, and good safety ratings. And that wasn't quite as hideous as my old car. (You have to say it "heedious" like Esqueleto on Nacho Libre.)

 

We'd been planning on getting me a new (used) car anyway when we got our tax refund this year. We knew we'd be getting it soon, so we looked around in Cedar last Thursday. We hadn't even considered a Saturn Vue, but we saw a 2004 at a dealership here and liked it more than we thought. It was beat up on the inside, but otherwise nice.

THEN, Friday night I was doing some more online searches for cars in St. George (Mark had found a bunch in SLC but I didn't want to go all the way back up there) and I saw a 2006 Saturn Vue. We had to wait to call them the next morning for the price, but Mark was sure it was going to be $6,000 more than the 2004 we saw. It wasn't! It was the same deal! (Woooooooeeeeeeeee!)  So we decided to drive down to take a look.

 

We got down to Painter's Sun Country Mitsubishi, and they had it ready for us.

 

It didn't take much schmoozing at all for us to want to sign the papers (which then took three stinking hours, but who's keeping track) after the test drive.

So we're sitting there with our sales guy Marcelo, and he says, "You want to see how much we can give you for a trade-in for your green car?"

Us: BAHAHAHAHA! You can't be serious! 

Marcelo: I'm serious.

Us: OK! ("They're going to want us to pay them for agreeing to take that hunk of junk off our hands...")

 

That's our lovely green car next to the new Saturn. We called her Ol' Bessie, or Bess, or the Green Beast. She's a 1994 Oldsmobile 88 Royale with nearly 200,000 miles that my dad so kindly gave me after my Hyundai Sonata fried in the middle of the New Mexican desert back in 2008. She had a comfortable ride:

 

On our last voyage with Ol' Bess

 

...But it was totally hammered on the inside, and quite frankly I was ready for something that didn't make me look like such a shriveled old fogey.

 

They offered a $600 credit for her, even though she was only worth $300. (And $45 of that was probably because I'd just filled the gas tank the day before, haha.) WE ACCEPT! 

 

Buh-Bye, Bessie!!!!!! 

Wow. I never thought the day would come. I never thought anyone would actually pay for that thing. And now I can drive around without fearing the cops because-the-registration-expired-in-December-but-it-needed-a-new-windshield-to-pass-inspection-but-that-would-have-cost-more-than-the-whole-car-was-worth-so-we-just-didn't-do-it.

I think we got the better end of the deal, don't you? It's still rather odd to see something so nice sitting in our driveway. (Sans the black bra/bug shield/snout cover it had on, you'll notice.)

♥

Happy birthday to me!!! I'm gonna be celebrating all month!! :D
Excuse me while I go give my new car a goodnight kiss.