Impulse Buying

 I draw odd people and bizarre occurrences like a lightning rod on a tree in the middle ofan open field, but I was still surprised when the man tapped on my window in the mall parking lot. I had left work at 5:30 with an eye toward going to  the cool west end gym. I decided to stop for a bite to eat at Whole Foods along the way, and feeling very urbane from rubbing elbows with healthy strangers, I determined that I needed some better workout clothes. I was trying to get the tag off my new sports bra when the harmless looking gray haired man appeared by my window, gesticulating and pointing to a piece of paper in his hand.  I immediately began to write the newspaper story in my head, “His neighbors said he was a nice ordinary man, the last person on earth you would suspect as a serial killer.” The car was not turned on, so incautiously I opened the door a crack. It was beginning to get dark out and the lot was full of cars, but the two of us were the only humans in sight. I wondered if he was going to accuse me of damaging his car, but to my relief  he started talking about my Prius. He had a new one parked right behind me and evidently I did not get the memo about membership in the Prius car owners club.  

For the next few hours this man talked and I listened. I kept waiting for him to hit on me like a natural man in the company of an attractive woman, but he really only wanted to talk cars. I usually can't figure out what to do with men who don't flirt, but this one was easy. He was a voice in need of an ear. He insisted I come see the bells and whistles on his car, and when I balked he told me he would sit in the back seat and let me take the drivers seat. It seemed gentlemanly at first until I realized he had so much stuff crammed in the passenger seat and floorboard that it would have taken an hour to move it. He showed me his GPS and bluetooth, all things I had seen before, but he seemed a bit taken aback when my first question was, “Why do you have a large chocolate cake in the floor?” There was a simple explanation. He was invited to a pot luck the next day and he found that if he took a large cake the weight conscious hostess made him take the leftovers home, therefore providing him with dessert for many days. He volunteered that the stacks of binders and papers in the seat were related to his job as an engineer. Ah, I though, this is all beginning to make sense to me somehow. 

Then Dustan asked me if I had though of getting a new car and selling the one I had now. I allowed as to how I had thought of it often. He seemed delighted and wanted to call his man and get me a deal. Okay, at this point I am slightly more open to suggestion but I'm not at all certain how I ended up at Panera with him writing an email to Nino, his personal car salesman. We sat by Panera's pseudo fireplace for some time waiting for Nino to return his call or respond to the email. Dustan bought me coffee when he got his dinner. I declined his offer of food. It was almost 9 before my new best friend  remembers that Nino is off on Wednesdays and won't be calling us back. 

Now I did not forget I was married, neither did I let Dustan forget. I called my husband and let him know I was talking to a man about a car. There was nothing more I could tell him with Dustan sitting there and god bless him, he took my word for it. I filled him in on the details when I returned home about 9:30, not having been to the gym or made any progress toward buying a car. To my surprise I have an email in my box the next morning from Nino telling me to call him, and then another telling me that he has a 2009 red Prius on the lot ready to roll out the door if I want it. Seems like the man who ordered it left for Europe for a month and can't take shipment, so instead of having to wait six months for one to arrive, I can have this one immediately. Friday night my husband and I give up dancing to drive to Woodbridge and pick up my new car.

We had to run the gauntlet of hungry car salesmen in the front of the car lot, one of whom told me they didn't have a Nino on staff. I flipped open my laptop and showed him Nino's picture on the bottom of the email and he slipped quietly back into the herd. Nino turned out to be a very perky red headed Irish boy with an Italian grandfather. He was wearing an orange sherbet colored dress shirt and a happy smile. Despite all that I liked him immediately. When I mentioned Dustan his eyes rolled back in his head. “The first time he came here he stayed for six hours!  I finally sent him over to my brother's garage to get rid of him and my bro called me back and told me he stayed there for four hours. But you know what,” he says to me in an amazed tone, “He has sent 5 other people here that have bought a Prius, three of them before he even got his car.” Seems like Dustan is on a mission to change the world, one Prius at a time. 

As Dustan had warned me, the rest of the crew at the dealership tried to charm, then shame, and finally guilt me into buying “extras”.  I had assured him that I would stand firm just like I had on all my previous car buying adventures. They were particularly relentless however, and I did my husband's folded arm bit and looked them squarely in the eye. “If you have to talk I can't stop you, but I'm tired, I'm hungry, and I'm not going to spend another penny beyond the price of the car.” The first salesgirl left and sent in the big guns to offer me exactly the same thing at half price. I repeated my statement and finally we got to the credit manager who made one last attempt, but at least he knew resolve when he saw it. I signed about a hundred pieces of paper without reading any of them and finally they let me leave with my car. 

Bright and early the next morning I headed out in my new Prius to pick up my daughter at the airport and take her to the credit union. We signed a few papers and low and behold, my daughter has a loan and  we both own a red Prius, identical down to the pre set radio stations. The only difference is a slightly lighter color on the seat fabric and that new car smell. Driving along the road this week I had the sudden feeling of panic that the mothers of twins must feel at times, wondering if I had picked the right one out of the driveway. I immediately reassured myself that there is no mistaking the scent of volatile organic compounds (VOC) consisting primarily of alkanes and substituted benzenes along with a few aldehydes and ketones. As you might have guessed I did a bit of research on that smell, after which I decided to roll my window down slightly for the next six months or so. While I know Dustan has probably been slightly off for years I'm not taking any chances.