Hello dumb dumb

I got up this morning and went straight to the Toyota dealership in Hollywood. I have been talking to the salesman over there since last week. We were going to get a new prius just in time for the holidays. I know. Two prius family. Can we get any more morally superior? Nope, not possible. Barf.

So I go over there. The guy already has the car pulled out for me. We go look at all the bells and whistles. Eco mode? Fancy! USB port? I'm delirious! Moon roof? No thanks...

We fill out the paper work and get credit scores and copy licenses, and oh... uhm... "Ma'am, your license is expired." and I'm all "It IS?" But I know damn well that it is. It expired on my birthday in August, but I forgot to renew it, and then when I made an appointment to get it renewed, I had a bad hair day, and so I skipped it, and then 4 months went by, and here I am trying to buy a car with no drivers license. No big deal. I'm a girl, I can get away with stuff like this.

I tell him, Nipper will come pick the car up, and he says, even better, he will drive it to our house, and we'll just swap cars there. Hello customer service, I love you!

So great, we're waiting for computers to crunch numbers or  managers to approve something or other and he says "Ma'am how many lease payments do you have left on your car?" One, I say triumphantly. My car, is a cream beetle convertible that is the worst financial decision we've ever made. It was my dream car when we got married, and we were very inexperienced in the whole car buying deal. We got a lease term that was FOREVER, and a payment that was too high, and oh did I mention that the car was a piece of crap? It flooded TWICE in the first year after a light rain. As in the car was filled with water. The dealership tried to tell me it was because maybe I had too many leaves inside my dashboard. I told them that if that many leaves could get in my dash within a month of buying the car, and cause it to be FILLED with water, that sounded like a design flaw to me. They fixed it. Twice.

The convertible top sometimes won't go all the way down or all the way back up. When I took it to the dealership, the guy in service said to me they couldn't "replicate the problem". Sure. Yes, you know what? I made it up. I have a newborn baby, and a job, and you know a life, but what I want to do it come in here and hang out in the service department making up problems with my car that don't exist. I told him to try it again because it was nearly every time, so maybe they hadn't tried hard enough. Then he said in what I'm sure was his most charming voice "well we're not just going to give you a new roof you know." Uhm, ok. That's great, how about just fix the one I've got, and thanks for the great customer service.

So Toyota guy and I are all rainbows and unicorns making plans for me and prius to spend christmas eve together when he gives me some bad news. When he ran my credit it showed that I had 6 more payments to be made on my beetle. Uuuuuuuuhhhhhhhmmmmmm. WHAT? I say it's not possible and I call the bank. Oh that's right did I mention that for whatever reason, our lease was through Bank of the West and not Volkswagen. Every month I had to send a check, because they didn't have an autopay system. Yes! Just one more reason for me to hate them. SO I call and they confirm that yes, my lease is up in JUNE, not January. I almost collapsed on the spot from A) my devastation at having to drive this p.o.s. for 6 more months. B) My irritation at the thought of telling Nipper that he was going to have to drive my fairy princess car sometimes in the next 6 months. And C) my mortification at having just spent an hour and a week of phone calls with a car salesman who now knows without a shadow of a doubt that I am the dumbest human being he has ever encountered and that I have just ruined his day.

Merry Christmas everybody!