I did it.

It took us a few months to get over the insulting experience we had at the local Lexus dealership. I tested the waters by visiting other car makers. Test drove the likes of Infiniti, Volvo, and Mini. I stared long and hard at BMW's and Acura's. I even took a peek at Honda. But nothing made my heart skip a beat like the Lexus. *sigh*

Recent events rekindled my desire and determination to get the Lexus. And when I say rekindled, I really mean it. I love this car.  (Not as much as Manda and Ellen DeGeneres, but close)

This experience was much better and I actually ended up with my favorite salesman of all time: Jim. I thought finding a car salesmen that didn't make my skin crawl would be impossible. Turns out it wasn't. I just had to look in the right place.

Jim made the transaction as painless as possible for Manda and I. Well, really it was painless for me. Manda was bored out of her mind during the one hour orientation we had inside the car. But she toughed it out for me. :o)

So, I am now the proud owner of a 2008 Lexus IS250. It is dark grey (Lexus calls it "smokey granite"). Since I don't have any pictures yet, here is a link to Lexus's website that represents what I'm driving around now.

Okay. I'm going to go drive around the block a hundred times just because I can.

Peace Out.
:o)

Lexus Shmexus.

So. Manda got a new car (A freaking suh-weet Camry Sport). After I put new tires on my car, she just had to one up me. That's fine. Two can play at this game.

We went down to the local Lexus dealership to check out the car I've been wetting myself over for the last year. Seriously, in my dreams, this car and I run in slow motion along the beach at sunset.

Apparently the dealership closes at 7pm, so the initial trip was spent simply perusing locked cars. Oh and gasping at the sticker prices. Seriously, they think highly of their cars.

The next day we again made our way down there. Only this time we made sure we arrived before the sun set.

Our sales guy was Bruce. He seemed nice enough. Initially. All smiles and full of optimism. I explained that I only wanted to test drive a car. Not going to buy anything. Bruce was confident he could make the sale. I told him he would have to make me a really stupid deal for me to buy and that wasn't going to happen. He informed me they were overstocked and sales were slow. He told me that he hadn't lost a sale yet.

It started out innocent enough. He wanted to figure out what my trade was worth. I didn't want to do this, I only wanted to test drive the stupid car, but now I was curious as to what kind of dumb deal he was going to offer. Stupid me, I handed my keys to the Lexus appraiser.

Without even appraising my car, he started to tell me my trade was worth a lot less than it actually is. I saw where he was going and tried to head him off. Really sir, if you're going to low-ball me on my trade, we can stop now. I just want to test drive the car. I was polite. Not rude or disrepectful. There just wasn't any point in wasting each other's time.

This is where the mood started to shift. The light-hearted gregarious sales man disappeared.

He claimed he couldn't have low-balled me on my car since he hadn't even made me an offer yet. Technically he hadn't made me an offer, but you don't have to be a genuis to figure out where he was going with the "your car is only really worth this..." lingo.

In hind-site, Manda and I should have left at this point, but we figured this guy couldn't possible keep up this attitude. Plus, I really wanted to test drive the damn car.

To try to redirect the conversation, I told him we didn't need to go over what my car was worth, I was only interested in the Lexus and would like to test drive it. Apparently this threw him off, because he then looked at me and said "what are you looking for from me?" Holy cow. Talk about male PMS'ing mood swings. Gee, let's review. You're a car salesman. And I have stated 87 times I would like to test drive this particular car.

I didn't say that to him. I saw no point in dropping to his level. Instead I told him: If I were to buy a car today, he'd have to sell it to me for 300-500 above invoice. This seemed to piss him off greatly. Not sure why. Apparently he doesn't like women who know what they want.

His reaction was to lean back in his chair, put his hands on his belly and say "Let's pretend you and I are buddies, and I'm going to educate you on how this car buying thing works."

Now that is a direct quote. I know this will be hard to believe, but it didn't sit well with me. I couldn't fathom the two of us being buddies. So I cut him off by telling him this isn't my first time buying car, and I was in fact well researched in the car I was looking to test drive.

He didn't believe me because he started quizzing me on used-car whole-sale values. (I thought I was looking for a new car?) Since I couldn't answer every question he had, he had the balls to look at me and say "if you were as well researched as you say you are, you would know all of this."

This is where I lost my cool.

After asking Bruce if he was going to have this attitude the entire time, he feigned innocence. He had no idea what attitude I was talking about.

This is where Manda lost her cool. Which if there is one of us you don't want "un-cool" it's Manda. Her southern-biotch is no fun. It's almost like a silent fart. You don't know its happened until its too late and you're nose deep in the smell of sh*t.

Manda, in her cute southern accent, informed the guy he was an arrogant bastard. Only she didn't say those words. It was more like "Bless your heart, I bet you're over-compensating for a small penis" (or something more poetic that).

When Manda was done with him, she handed his balls back to him and he immediately changed his tune. He apologized profusely even offering to get another salesman for us. I said no thanks I just wanted the keys to my car so I could go, but he went to get one anyways.

In short order, the manager of the dealership was standing in front of us, with a beet red Bruce cowering behind him. The manager did all things he was supposed to do. He even got the keys back for my car.

In the end, the manager of the dealership took us out for a test drive. He's good at his job, because I'd almost forgotten how mad I was. We received all kinds of free food/drinks etc. But none of it was enough to erase what happened.

I love the car more after test driving it, but I don't know that I'll ever buy one now. I may just continue to own one in my dreams.

Oh and Bruce. You bastard. You finally lost a sale.

Peace Out.=o)

Airport Antics.

OK, so it couldn't get worse?  HA....the trip from hell had only just begun.

After Lindsay decided to try re-arranging the skin on her fingers via a fast moving dog leash, we left for the airport.  We stopped to get a quick bite to eat before trudging through security.  Taco Bell was the fast, cheap, easy and on the way decision.  We order our usual, 3 crunchy tacos each and a drink to share.  The drink request was Sierra Mist.  You know how you have your mouth all prepared for one thing and take a big ole drink of it?.....then SURPRISE, it's actually Pepsi!  Yeah, it was interesting.)

So, we pull into the parking garage to begin the unbelievably fun task of finding a parking spot when all of a sudden, out of NO WHERE, this guy in his P.O.S. little Honda Accord comes flying out of his parking spot backward.  "Jerk Face" (this is the cleaned up version of what I actually called him) didn't even look before he pulled a Jeff Gordon in reverse and almost took us out.  Of course we did the same thing any normal person would do, honked the horn and gave the evil eye.  Well, "Jerk Face" laughed and flipped us off!  FLIPPED US OFF!!  Can you believe that?  *sigh*  My blood pressure just shot up thinking about it.

Alright, where was I, "Jerk Face" got me all discombobulated...so, we get inside the airport and stand in line to get through security when the TSA Nazi's confiscate half our toiletries.  Who knew they changed the ounce requirements.  Who knew having a 5 oz bottle of lotion that was only half full was "against the rules?"  We wait in line, go through the cattle call that is necessary to board any Southwest flight.  All this with only a minor 30 - 45 minute delay.  (if you travel at all, you know a 30 - 45 minute delay is fantastic!)  We pick our seats and settle in for the "long" flight to Vegas.  Ahhh, finally we will be able to relax and get ready to throw down in Sin City, right?  RIIIIGHT.  We're airborne and the flight attendant gets everyone their drinks, typical flight shenanigans.  Suddenly, there is a shuffling noise, three heads in the seats in front of us pop up....then, Lindsay's feet, my feet and both of our backpacks are covered in Vodka Tonic.  My disbelief is only compounded when I hear what one of the "Intellectually Challenged Klutz's" say, "Uh, the plane like, just went up."  (Ok, let me think about this for a second....first of all, I don't know about you, but when I am on a plane, it is in the air and I am not to my destination yet, I am DAMN glad it is "up"....isn't the other alternative down?  My second observation at this moment was....if the plane "just went up" wouldn't the drinks that were sitting on the tray in front of Lindsay, the lady beside us, myself AND EVERYONE ONE ELSE ON THE PLANE have spilled every where too?  Just curious.)  On with the story...we land in Vegas and are getting ready to deplane when I notice something about the "Intellectually Challenged Klutz's" attire.  One of the girls had on this little dress that barely covered her "junk" and it was SOAKED in Vodka Tonic, one of the other ICK's looked like he had downed an entire gallon of water and didn't quite make it to the potty.  Isn't justice divine?

Checking into the hotel was a breeze, I caught myself thinking "this trip might turn out ok"....shouldn't we know better than to tease ourselves with this line of thinking?  Lindsay and I go see the bride-to-be and her pals in their room and head to our room to call it a night.  Nothing like crawling onto a slab of freshly laundered concrete and curling up with a sandpaper blanket to catch some zzzz's.  Finally, sleep takes over and I am dreaming of beautiful meadows when suddenly a dark figure appears in the meadow with a FOG HORN blaring in my ear....wait, that isn't a dark figure with a fog horn, that would be an obnoxiously loud alarm going off in the hotel.  *sigh* I get up and open the door expecting smoke or fire or a crazy bastard with a gun and I see nothing, NOTHING!  (Oh, by the way, it happens to be 7 A.M.)  I crawl back into the slab and pull the sand paper back over me and try to re-visit the meadows when a VERY, VERY LOUD voice begins speaking to me.  I look at Lindsay as if to get confirmation that she heard them too.  She is wide-eyed and questioning her sanity as well.  So, we both stop to listen to what the voice has to say....."YOU MAY HAVE HEARD AN ALARM.  PLEASE STAY IN YOUR ROOM AND AWAIT FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS.  SECURITY IS CHECKING INTO THIS."  (who knew there was a loud speaker IN our room ABOVE our bed?)  Nice.  Stay in your room so you can get blown up or some weirdo can come kidnap you.....  Do they expect us to go back to sleep now?  Honestly!  Lindsay and I do what any good guest would do, we open the door and look around...no, really, we lie in bed and "await instructions". Are you wondering what those instructions were?  "PLEASE DISREGARD THE ALARM. EVERYTHING IS FINE."  However, they couldn't say this and be done.  No.  They repeated it 10 times, VERY, VERY loudly.  Did I mention VERY?  We gave up, got out of bed for breakfast and went to the little store down stairs to purchase toiletries, thanks to the TSA Nazi's.

SO....later that day, we decide to try out the new toiletries.  Seriously, the shower was the worst thing about the whole trip.  No.  Really.  I turn the handle to hot and cannot believe what comes out, or doesn't, depending on the way you look at it.  There is barely a trickle when it is pointed to hot and you had to turn the handle to cold to have a stream of water very similar to what comes from a garden hose without a nozzle on it.  Washing my hair was a blast.  Bathing was even better.  The Sahara SUCKS!  Never EVER stay there.

Keep in mind, while all of this is going on, I am still having to play "Firefighter" and get the "baby" her ice for her savaged fingers.  Ironically, the rest of the trip was pretty uneventful.  (if you call penis sip cups and penis bopper head bands uneventful....)  We got home relatively unscathed and lived to travel again.

Our next trip was quite interesting too...I should write a book about all the interesting airport antics we experience.  =o)

L8R.
Manda