The Hazel Project

Hello everyone, thanks for hanging in there with this story. I’ve received some positive feedback and even a call from Betty who asked, “Are you driving around with the window down or running AC?” I refused to tell her since it would be giving away the end of the story.

We return to the story with the “The Tall Man” coming back with a printout of his number offering. I was shocked - it was good. Really good. He had priced the car $500 over invoice; deducted over $3000 off MSRP. Just like that. With the magic pen. I had a rush of adrenaline.

I honestly thought he and I would go back and forth over price for the car. I was in disbelief my sharpee numbers held such power.

At that moment I started to feel overwhelmed with excitement because my dream car really was within reach. Lucky perked up; and to keep things rolling he said, ” I’ll have it washed and filled up with gas.” I just nodded ‘yes’ like Ralphie in Santa Land.

Suddenly, Lucky plopped down in the chair across from me. He had a packet of Prius info and a square plastic key. He took a breath and began the most stilted, memorized infomercial I’ve ever heard. He talked about the Prius hybrid technology - the part I already knew. He used a folded diagram card. I swear it looked like an “In Flight Emergencey” card for Delta Airlines. Fotunatley this only lasted 2 or 3 minutes. He finished his mind numbing speech by telling me to have the car maintained every 5,000 miles. Then he folded the card back up and tried to shove it back into its’ white vinyl folder. He eventually folded over a corner to get it to fit.

He stood up and said he’d meet me after I talked to the Finance and Insurance guy.

I excused myself to the Mens room. I was in a tired and hungry, andrenaline stupor. I just looked at my face in the mirror while I washed my hands in their new fancy - ‘no splash’ sink; and shaking my head, thought, “I Won!”

I gathered myself back together and took a few deep breaths and my ’self’ said - “This is a happy moment and it should be fun - if at any point you stop having fun - that’s when you’ll know if you truly won any car negotiation.”

Have you ever wondered why the Finance and Insurance guys have really tiny offices? I had plenty of time to ponder this as I sat on an uber-comfy, round leather sofa. What a nice relief from the spine mangling IKEA chairs in the main area. This must be another control tactic. All of a sudden I was very relaxed - happy, and looking forward to going home. I notice two F&I guys still working and hope to get the one in Office #2 - he seems happy to be there helping people, even at 10:30 at night. He just emitted a good vibe. That’s what I needed.

Instead, I got the guy in Office #1. He sat at his desk for several minutes filling out paper work. He motioned for me; barely looking up from his paper work.

By this time it’s 10:45pm and he was VERY ready to go home. I had the distinct feeling he was there out of loyalty which manifested itself as contempt towards me.

We’ll finish up tomorrow.

Thanks for checking in.

Stephen A. Thomas

This entry was posted on Monday, October 1st, 2007 at 12:42 am and is filed under on the path, posts & stories . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.