I know! Two posts in a day!

So Mark picked me up at lunch time and we drove around and looked at cars some more, to no avail. Then he took me back to work and went off on his own, and then called to tell me he’d found the PERFECT CAR (for him) and that we would get a decent chunk of cash back on the PT and um there’s just a couple of tiny things … 1) it’s a 15-year-old VW and 2) it’s a manual.

Ok fine. We talk, I suggest a couple other options, he really really wants this car and it’s in great shape and VWs are very reliable, blah blah blah. I have never learned to drive a manual and have no desire to, but suddenly, aha! It occurs to me I can use this to bargain for what *I* really want when it comes to turning the Ford in and buying something else.

The upshot is, Mark now owns (I’m guessing, I haven’t heard back from him since he skipped drove off to complete this transaction) a 1993 Volkswagen Jetta and I have near complete control over the choice and price of the second car. AND he agreed that we don’t have to purchase a new car, if we can get a decent deal and a decent interest rate, if I really don’t want to. Which I don’t, because hi, car payments suck, and I’d really like to cut our car payments in half when we go off this lease.

AND, as a bonus, I will never ever have to drive his car since it’s a manual and I don’t do sticks. Which means he won’t get to drive MY car very often because he can’t leave me at home with the kids with a car I can’t drive. Hah! I haven’t much discussed this point of contention here but trust me, it’s really annoying when one fills up one’s car with gas and leaves one’s overdue library books in the front seat to be returned and one’s sunglasses on the dash, and then one’s spouse decided to drive said car rather than HIS car, and doesn’t return the library books OR fill up the tank AND leaves Taco Bell detritus in the front seat and nasty music in the CD player. Yuck.

This concludes the automotive portion of our broadcast day.

It is pouring rain. Again. And I have to take the bus home. Which would be fine, except that I don’t have an umbrella. Blah.