When most people think of honeymoons, they don't think of them as opportunities to create to-do lists, but that's exactly what B and I did the last evening of our honeymoon. It was a Sunday night in Paris, and museums, stores, and many restaurants were closed, and we were tired anyway, so we hung out in the hotel room, watching American football and figuring out what we had to do to merge our lives after we returned back home.
The tasks were pretty straightforward. Change my name (which has been more difficult than I anticipated). Merge our checking accounts. Complete our financial round-up. Sell B's car and get a new one.
B's car, a Saab, is sporty and apparently fun to drive (for those who know how to drive a standard), but it's had some issues in the past. The heat has a tendency to stop working on the coldest days of winter. A couple of summers ago, we went away for a weekend, and one of the rear windows went down and wouldn't go back up again. The car stranded us on the side of the road one day when we were visiting my parents, and we had to ride 40 miles in a tow truck with no seat belts and a driver who was a likely crystal meth addict.
In short, the car has been more of a hassle than it is worth. But the idea of going to a car dealership to trade it in was not appealing, either. Driving the car was a little like riding around in a ticking time bomb, but as long as it was just ticking and not exploding, continuing to drive it was easier than going to a dealership and starting the haggling process.
We postponed the haggling and decided to focus on research. B has an unrequited love for station wagons, so our plan was to buy an Outback, and we found a couple of models that featured dual-zone climate control, which is possibly the best invention on earth for those of us who feel the cold more than others. Our marriage is better off when the heat is set to 78 degrees for me and 64 degrees for him.
This weekend, we decided that our procrastination had continued long enough, and it was time to close the Saab chapter and start a new Subaru chapter. On the recommendation from a friend, we went to a dealership that was pretty far away but that offered several potential vehicles.
We found a vehicle that we liked--we wanted to buy used, but it is a 2008 model, so it has a couple more years left on its warranty. It is two-tone, with blue on top and silver on the bottom. It has heated seats, a giant moonroof, and the all-important dual-zone climate control, and a few other features that I don't care about (the steering wheel moves in and out as well as up and down, and the CD player can hold 6 CDs instead of 1).
The negotiation was stressful. He came back with an interest rate, and we countered. He offered a number for our trade-in, and we countered. He offered a number for the car, and we countered. We finally settled upon some numbers that were acceptable to both parties, signed on the dotted line, and agreed to come back at the end of the week to pick up the new wheels.
When we left, my shoulders were stiff, my stomach hurt, and B had licked his lips so much that they were bone dry, but we were proud of our acccomplishment and were glad that we had stuck to our guns during the negotiations. And soon we will have 2 reliable cars that we love.
And now we need a name for the new car...
