Oh. Oh. Oh. I was a bad bad girl yesterday.
Bad girl!
First, the back story:
The other night, we were driving someplace and I spotted a Lincoln LS and said “Oooooh! Pretty!” There are very very few cars that I get the Pretty! vibe from. The Jaguar comes to mind. I dig Jags. Certain models of Mercedes also come to mind. I also really like Corvairs, for that retro look. Before you begin to think that I just like expensive cars, strangely enough, I also like the newer Dodge Intrepids and the VW bug, which is very cute and perky. But Esteban knows me entirely too well. He told me that I should avert my eyes when then new Lincoln LS commercial plays on the television. “Why?” I asked. “What’s it like?” “It’s…. zoomy. I actually said ‘Oh no!’ when I saw it.” He replied. Danger, Will Robinson. Danger.
As part of my new position, I was going to be required to do a certain amount of travel. Since our clients are based out of exciting locales such as New York, San Francisco, and London, I felt pretty certain that some sweetness was coming my way. Then I was asked to do some actual traveling.
To scenic Fond Du Lac, Wisconsin, population 40,000. Ah the perks of world travel and only after a week officially on the job!
I dressed in uber executive clothes…. bootleg black pants, starched white button down with pointy collar (unbuttoned more than I thought was prudent, but mandated by my PA, Chauffi), black button-up jacket, dove grey Ass Splinter pearls and spiffy shined Doc Martens.
My morning was spent driving down in the Monte, singing along to my stereo, wearing my Nautica shades and feeling oh so cute. I met with my people down there. I think I scared them. They were on their toes, and that always makes me feel uncomfortable. I would not make a very good manager because I can’t handle people who think I’m their superior. Maybe it’s a girl thing. In one of my gender psych courses, I did a paper on how little boys immediately establish a hierarchy of power and their relationship structures and forms of play are all about reinforcing that structure and the struggle to climb the social ladder, whereas little girls struggle to regulate everyone to the same level and when an Alpha girl gives a directive or leads an activity, she’ll even turn the instructions into a sort of game, softening the language to take her out of the control position. There’s this innate fear of being a Hermione Granger. I guess that just doesn’t go away with the appearance of wrinkles and grey hair.
After the meetings, I was brain-fried. I hopped in my car and promptly zoned out during my drive back home. Then as I got closer to Appleton, I started to think about my love of the Lincoln LS. On Monday, I had gone onto a large dealer’s website and looked up a reasonably priced used LS. Silver with a V8 and a sunroof, it was exactly what I had in mind as a suitable replacement for the Monte. No one can associate a Lincoln LS with Nascar! Until I throw a big “#3 1951 – 2001 RIP” sticker across the back window, of course.
On a whim, I dialed the general dealership number and asked to talk to a sales person. The dealership had several different locations, several of which were behind me on the highway. Chances were that the vehicle I had looked at would be at the Imports and luxury dealer that I had already passed, but what the heck? They transferred me to the Internet Sales Manager, Bob, who worked out of a car lot at the very next exit on the highway. I described him the car and he exclaimed, “Why, that car is here!” Wow. Karma! I thought. (Or Carma. BWAH!) I exited the highway and scooted to the dealership a few blocks away.
I spotted my car (MY CAR!?! See how I was thinking already? This was not good.) in the lot. It was then I should have known that I was stepping into dangerous territory. I think in the background I could hear the low strains of the music of seduction. No, not Barry White. The Lincoln LS is far too classy for that. No, it was Offenbach’s La Belle Helene.
Immediately, Bob approached me with the keys for a test drive. God, he was a good little car salesman weasel. He knew the best way to deal with a frantic yet attractively dressed curvy young executive with poopy brown hair. He popped the door open.
I swear, the smell of gentrification and old money wafted out at me. It was the smell of leather reading chairs in mahogany paneled country club reading rooms. It was the smell of New York 5th Avenue and a pack of credit cards an inch thick, all screaming “Spend me! Spend me now while we’re young! Before we get grandma skin on our hands!”. It was the smell of weekends spent in Vermont in the fall, sipping cider from hand-thrown pottery mugs after a day of antiquing. It was the smell of CEO sweat mixed with the shavings of trust funds, valet parking receipts and the NYSE pages of the Wall Street Journal. It was the smell of corporate buy outs, of under the table bargaining, of bilingual domestic help, gardeners and pool boys. It was the smell that you might catch a waft of, right before the door closes to the Good Old Boys network while hearing chuckles and the clinks of ice cubes in glasses of 50 year old scotch.
It was a very good smell.
Then I settled into the driver seat. The seat that had the capability to heat my curvy round bottom in the arctic winter months. I mean, I have a hot bottom, but this is Wisconsin and our winters get pretty cold. It’s not a stretch of the imagination that I would enjoy an external heat source! My cheeks deserve radiant heat from buttery leather seats! I adjusted the steering wheel to my comfort. With a power tilt. A POWER tilt. I felt a little lightheaded. Bob slid into the seat next to me and I put that mofo into drive. It responded with a throaty growl. We were on the road, oh yes we were. The LS sneered at the other cars on the road, the plebe Chevrolets, the pass’ Passats.
Then we went onto the highway. Bob the Very Nice Car Salesman showed me the various features, including the lovely power sun roof. I mentally calculated that I would be able to easily stand and drive hanging out the sunroof while Esteban drove, and I would be king of the world and then probably die a tragic death floating in the Atlantic while Billy Zane and Francis Fischer got to live out the rest of their shallow existences.
Then I warned him, “Ok, I’m going to test the 3.9 L engine now. Just so you don’t, you know, get the wiggins.” He grinned and I stomped the gas.
That’s when it started to talk to me. “Mon cheri….” it began, low, growling into my inner core. “Mi amore, we belong together. You and I…. free and wild and yet classy and luxurious.”
“Did you hear something?” I asked Bob who was gripping the safety strap.
“No, that’s the beauty of this car. You don’t hear any of your normal road noise blahty blah bublah ya da…”
The LS interrupted. “Don’t listen to the walking pamphlet over there. We’ll get him out of here soon enough and then you and I can be alone together. We can go down that 20 mile stretch of road by the Bay at 75 and it will feel like you’re in a car commercial. You can bring that CD with the song on it from the DeBeers Diamonds commercial.” I felt a ripple along the seat, caressing my thighs. “Oooh, you make me wild, Weetabix. I’ve been waiting since the assembly line to have an owner like you. Someone who understands the complexity of a sport luxury car. Someone who knows how to handle my aggressive side.”
“I really like this car!” I said. I didn’t add “I think it’s turning me on!” But it was. That’s the horrible truth. The car was turning me on. I wanted to lick it.
“Well, you’re a person who seems to know what you want. What if I let you take it home for a couple of days, see if your husband likes it? I think you’ll be happy with it. This is a beauty.” Bob the Weasel Salesman replied with an eager to please manner.
“Oh my.” I said. A bead of sweat broke out on my forehead.
“Oh yes, sweet Weet, you and I, together. Who needs Esteban? You can have me. I can love you far more than any silly computer writer. Does he make you look like a debutante borrowing her Daddy’s car at Nordstrom’s? Does Esteban know how much you like to zoom, to speed along the roads? Can Esteban make you look like a millionaire with a desire to blend in with the rest of the peasants? I can make that brown hair work for you. It will seem classy rather than dowdy if you’ve got a sweet ride like me, baby. Come on. Take me home. I’ll make you breakfast.”
“Um….” I bit my lip.
“You can keep it through the weekend.” He added generously.
“I’m not crazy about the light grey interior. I wanted black leather seats. Let’s see what kind of trade I can get for the Monte first.” I conceded, drooling over the idea of tooling around town in my dream car for a couple of days. Even driving back to the lot, I was bargaining with myself. The car cost less than a new Grand Prix and it had far more features (and more mileage, but who’s counting?). The payment wouldn’t be that much more than my current one and I was making more money now. And I deserved it. I deserved a nice car.
We went back to the dealership and I reluctantly got out of the LS. We went into his office and he “went to talk to his manager” about the Monte. I hate it when they do that. They’re just making you stew while they get a cup of coffee. It’s all psychological. You sit there in their glass offices, staring at the pictures of their wives and kids and just start to think. They’re hoping that it makes you want the car, but it just gives me time to think. About payments. About the fact that the car would be just a big status symbol and nothing more. About the fact that my mom owned either used Volvos or $300 POS cars and I grew up just fine. About the fact that I could invest that $25,000 and just drive my Monte, which was fine until a few months ago, and be able to actually have a little of that financial stability rather than just look like I do. What is more, if I just drove up in an expensive vehicle, it would have been a huge pressure to Esteban. It would have been a wife game, and I don’t like to go down the manipulation road, especially not less than 24 hours after I purchased air fare and hotel accommodations for Journal Con, a vacation that he will not be attending.
Bob returned. “Well, my manager thinks that we could probably give you $2500 for your trade in.”
I did a double take. I happen to know that while my car is no longer the pricey ride it was when I purchased it, similar cars are going for $8000 in the paper. If he would have come back and said it would be something like $5000, I probably would have signed whatever I needed to sign and did the test-drive. But $2500? That was ridiculous! I was moderately insulted.
I explained very nicely that I didn’t want to drive home in a car when I hadn’t seriously talked to Esteban about buying a new one. I had only intended to test drive one so that I’d know how they handled before I did any serious research on them. Besides, I added, I wasn’t crazy about the color of the interior and I didn’t think there were audio controls on the steering wheel. Bob didn’t think so either, but he wasn’t sure. He walked me out to my car but on the way, we both stopped by the car to see if it had the controls on the steering wheel.
It did. My heart broke. Without looking at me, Weasel Bob just held out the keys and jingled them. They tinkled like perfectly little tuning forks. The LS began to hum the theme from Lovestory.
I called Bob an evil, evil man. I told the LS that I was sorry, but I couldn’t be a mean manipulative wife. I took Bob’s card and promised him that I’d call. He gave me the spiel about how the car probably won’t last very long on their lot.
I went back to the Monte. The rust spot (a factory defect on the rear window that I’ve been arguing with GM about) looked as though it swallowed the entire car. The ding in the side door looked like a crater. The whole thing looked like it belonged at a Poison concert, with a Playboy air freshener hanging from the rearview. During the ride home, I was mentally calculating. The LS wouldn’t have felt that bump. The LS wouldn’t have streaky wipers. The LS wouldn’t have gotten passed by that guy in the truck with the Calvin peeing sticker in the back.
It’s probably for the best, anyway. I’ll probably take Esteban to visit the car if it’s still there this Saturday, but I’m not setting any hopes upon it. I’m not really in the market to buy another car until next year and I’m not entirely sold on the LS. Plus, I’m not sure how to negotiate the whole thing. For months after I bought the Monte, I had nightmares that things would happen to it. That disturbed me, that I put that much emotion into a material possession. It was such a status symbol and it bothered the former hippy child in me that I cared that much. It still bothers me, especially now that the little Wannabe Debutante in me has upped the ante.
It will be interesting to see which half of my brain wins. I’m honestly uncertain. The hippy child has a much more pure heart but the Deb is very vicious.
This just in: Vegas has set the odds that I’ll be in a Lincoln LS in two months at 3:2. Hmmm.
I plugged a bunch of photos into yesterday’s entry and also added a paragraph because I think I might be going bald.
That just goes to show how much I love you guys, right? The fact that not only do I show you pictures in which my hair looks like utter ass, I also invite speculation on my premature girl baldness. Gah.
By the way, I must rescind the comment that my hair is Librarian Brown. I’ve had my knuckles soundly slapped in the comment section by a reader who is apparently a racy Librarian, the type normally found in magazine articles which begin “Dear Penthouse, I never thought this would happen to me, but one night I was working late at the library…” who informed me that librarians do have fun hair. Great. Now my hair isn’t even cool enough to be Libarian hair. I’ve changed it to Soccer Mom hair. Send all complaints to the message board. It’s lonely and could use some hot racy Soccer Mom action. Instead of an LS, I should be pricing Chevy Ventures and putting one of those “My kid is an honor student at Richard M. Nixon Middle School” bumper stickers in the window. Or a soccer ball.
Dear God,
If having the hots for Justin on American Idol is wrong, I don’t want to be right. Sure, I’m like 8 years older than him. Sure, he’s got that whole Sideshow Bob thing going on, but… DAYUM!
And that’s all I’m going to say about that.
Sincerely,
Weetabix
