And I have a bunch of stuff to talk to you about. I have notes. And more notes. My phone is getting full. I'm back to carrying my daily planner (because I forgot to come to work one night) and making notes there as well. I am warning you; you never know what you're going to get when you come here.
Now I just need to decide which one to talk about. I guess we'll go with my car. It's been a pretty hot topic lately. In more ways than one.
For those that don't know, Gee and I have been driving old, worn-out, beat up vehicles for quite some time. Not because we didn't have the means to go get us more vehicles, but because we are cheap. Why fix it if it aint broke, right?
Well it got pretty damned hot this past couple of months. And we were both driving vehicles that didn't have air. Nobody wanted to ride with us. Hell, WE didn't even want to ride with us. I was constantly begging Matilda to take us places.
Anyway, you already know that my dream of owning a Volkswagen beetle was crushed by that dickhead banker in C-ville. And the last thing I told you was that Rhoden Auto came to our rescue and found me the car of my dreams. Well they did. And they didn't.
They sent me home in this beautiful little silver ice Pontiac G6
and said they would give us a call the next day with the banker's info (since it was about 2000 hrs in the night when we finally got a car picked out and the papers filled out) and we would decide what day we would come back out and do the "official signing" of the papers. Friday went by and we heard nothing. Saturday went by and we heard nothing. Sunday they were closed so I didn't expect to hear from them and guess what, we didn't. So Monday rolls around and we STILL don't hear anything from them. That made me a little nervous. So we call and leave a message and tell them to call us back.
Tuesday, the salesman calls Gee and says, "Look, this isn't going to work out. Your credit score isn't high enough (that's what we are trying to do!) and the bank just isn't going to go for it. If you want, come back out and we will find you another car." Sounded perfectly reasonable to me. Sounded perfectly honest to me as well.
We drove back out there (mind you, when I say we drove back, that means we drove back a hundred miles one way). We both had to work early the next morning and we were already hot and tired but we did it because we wanted to have this car buying experience over with.
We decided on a Ford Fusion. Gray in color and it had some hail damage.
It was about thirty five hundred dollars cheaper, had about ten thousand less miles on it and the salesman told us that we would only have to make payments for three years on this one instead of the four years that we originally thought we would have on the Pontiac.
Cool beans. We go home and life is good. This time they told us that we wouldn't hear from them until Friday and that we would more than likely need to plan on coming back out on Monday to finish up paperwork unless we could get it done by fax.
And that was my plan. Fax everything I could fax. They wanted a utility bill. I gave them that. They wanted a phone bill. I gave them that. They wanted Gee's last three paystubs. I couldn't give them that because he works for a very small company and they get a handwritten check. (I told them this the very first time we were there though)
Gee's boss had a paper written up, on company letterhead, and signed, that showed Gee's gross income in one column, every deduction made from that week's check in a corresponding column and the last column had his net wages. And they did this for the past six months. At four checks a month, that's a lot of information (that they went over and beyond to get us). I faxed it in. It wasn't good enough. They wanted the stubs.
I literally almost had to go out there and shake that stubborn S.O.B. because he couldn't grasp that someone gets paid with a handwritten check. The next thing he asked for was Gee's bank statements. He wanted to show the financier that they could prove Gee's income by his bank accounts. That wasn't going to work for us either because Gee ONLY puts in enough money to cover his bills. After that, he keeps his cash so he knows how much money he has to get him through.
They did not like that one bit. And they were pretty vocal about it too. I faxed them a copy of Gee's income tax return & W2 statement and THOSE were not even good enough for them. They said those weren't very good proof of income. I said They're good enough for the I.R.S.!" Un-freaking-believable!!
So here comes Monday and by noon we haven't heard anything from Rhoden's. Gee gets off work early because it's so hot and he calls them. And he gets their voicemail. And it got pretty hot for me then too. I called up and asked for the financial department. Of course I got his voicemail too. Here's how it went.
"This is the voicemail for Jerry Jackass. I'm away from my desk so leave me a message and I will return your call as soon as possible." Switch the phone from right to left because this phone calls is about to get dominated on my end. "This is Amelia. Wife of Gee. Come get your car. We are tired of getting screwed around by your company and we are not wasting anymore of OUR time or OUR money to bring your cars back to you. You have done nothing short of jack us around. I will be waiting for your call."
About an hour later, I get a call from the salesman asking me what's going on and I told him that they need to come get the car because they didn't hold up their end of the deal. They made promises they couldn't keep and we were done. I told him about EVERYTHING I had faxed and sent them and this is what he told me, "This really pisses me off. I am going to go talk to Jerry right now and I WILL be calling you back."
He must have lost my number because HE never called me back. I'm not shocked. In the least. Some man, whom I can't remember his name right now, did eventually call back and Gee told him we were done screwing with this and they needed to pick the car up. He told him that not only did we stop payment on the check, but we had the insurance taken off as well. Neither of these things had happened yet but they didn't need to know that.
First thing next morning, that was all done. And later that afternoon, they came and got their car. Phew. Done with those idiots. Twenty years of loyal service with them and they messed it all up. Arivederci.
Gee took this opportunity to go to the bank and get himself a loan for a pickup he had been eyeing.
He took two pieces of paper with him to get the loan. A copy of his drivers license and the copy of his wages.
I took a few more days to find "the car" that felt like it loved me as much as I needed to love it. And yesterday I found that car. Wait...............get this. It's a Pontiac G6 (same as the first car that Rhoden's screwed us out of) and it's gray (same as the second car Rhoden's screwed us out of).
The neat thing about this color though is that sometimes it looks gray, sometimes it looks blue and sometimes it looks green. I love that.It has an awesome sunroof with four settings and sometimes, when I am sitting in it, I understand the movie Christine! HA! I had to drive my baby on gravel yesterday. Twenty five miles per hour. Didn't even kick up any dust. Went by a farmhouse and two dogs came out to chase me and ended up just jogging beside me, more curious about what I was doing than worrying about me being a threat to them!
The stereo has a DVD player in it. I hate it. It won't be staying.
Hey, do you wanna buy a car stereo??? Until next time my friends.............do the dance. The rain dance. We need it. We need it badly.
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