I bought a new car Saturday.
I love it.
It's a 2008 Mazda 3, 5-door, manual transmission.
And it's black.
Like the night.
I love it.
A few weeks ago, I was sitting at the light outside of my old apartment, when the couplings that connect the gearshift to the clutch (or something like that) in my legendary '97 Saturn busted. Luckily, I was less than 1,000 feet from the Saturn dealer, so I drifted in and had them service it the next morning. However, the mechanic told me that "someone has been pretty rough on that clutch", (heh...my bad, sir...) and that it wouldn't last more than 6 months.
>>Gulp<<
I knew the day was coming when I'd hit the "Diminishing Return" mark on that old blue heap... and it just so happened that this was the death knell for my faithful steed of over a decade.
So, after Dad tossed a bunch of research materials at me, and I looked over them for a week or so, Big Bro Mark and I went car shopping around York. My short list included the Mazda 3 hatchback and the Honda Fit. So we hit the Mazda place first. We walked around for nearly 25 minutes and nobody talked to us.
No. That's not true... One salesman who was with other customers commented on my Thundercats shirt in passing, but he remained busy the whole time. There was another associate who was lounging around, but he never made any attempt to talk to us or even make eye contact with us. So, disappointed, we made off for the Honda dealership. I was perturbed, because the Mazda was what I really wanted, and I didn't even get to drive one. Thanks, dicks.
But...off we went, only to suffer another crushing defeat! The Fit, it turns out, is extraordinarily awesome, and cheap, and, therefore, is in outrageously high demand. The salesman said they're sold out in the tri-state area. Not only sold out, but pre-sold out. (WHAT?!?) They had a shipment of about 20 coming in soon, and all but one of them already had a name attached to it...(SERIOUSLY??!??!1?) and that one was not a manual, which was what I wanted.
So, then we went next door to the Subaru dealer, because Mark really likes his wagon, and he wanted me to check out their smaller hatchbacks. So we did: I drove an Outback Sport, which was really nice. But I wasn't ready to buy yet, even though the salesman was very nice. Hugh was his name, and he hailed from New England, and when he spoke of the Imprezas, it came out "Imprezer". I liked Hugh, but I wanted to go back to the Mazda place for a second try.
When we got there, we approached the cigarette-smoking herd of salesmen outside and one of them stepped up and asked us what we wanted. Manny let Mark and I take a 4-door Mazda 3 (not really what I wanted to buy) out for a spin, even though they were closing soon. It was also a nice ride, but I wasn't feelin' it. And Mark and I were less than impressed with the attention we were garnering from the staff. Daunted, we gave up for the day. Thanks again, dicks.
The following Thursday, I asked Dad if he wanted to go out shopping with me on Saturday, and we decided that we'd head out to Hanover to check the Mazda and Honda places out there, and maybe even the Toyota place to look at some Scions. Then, if we were feeling plucky, we might head to Maryland or Reading.
Turns out, we didn't have to go farther than Hanover. But we did go on the Saturday when the remnants of Hurricane Hanna were rolling through central PA, dumping an ass-ton of storm on us. And the roads to Hanover are all backroadsy and stuff, so I was white-knuckling for a while on the drive out in the Saturn.
Anyways, we go to the Mazda place just before 10am and were greeted by Steve, who kinda reminded me of the guy from Office Space who tried to commit suicide in his garage because he was going to get fired. You know...
Bob:"What would you say.... ya do here?"
That guy: "I'm a people person, dammit!"
Yeah. That was Steve, but he was a tad cooler than that character from the movie.
I told him what I was looking for, and they had two manual hatchbacks on the lot. One was a new blue-green '08 with standard Touring features, and the other was a "used" black one with the Grand Touring features.
I drove the blue-green one first, and I really liked it. It was the first time I'd gotten to drive what I actually wanted to get, so it was pretty cool. When we got back, Steve asked how I liked it and I said "It was nice. Good ride. Feels good. What about the black one?"
As Dad and I were walking out to hop into the black one, a younger salesman who was sitting by the door we were heading through quipped,"That's the car, man!" As if to say "Yo, that's one hot piece of shit you're about to go test-drive, man." Maybe he was trying to help Steve sell me this car by saying that. Maybe he really thought it was a sweet ride. Either way, it totally swayed me into liking this one a bit more, even before I put my foot on the pedals.
So, off we went in the black one, Dad and I. It was nice. Real nice. A few minutes down the road, Dad said, "So this is the one you're gonna buy, huh?" I guess I had a look on my face or something.
This one was marked down because it was "used". A lady came and had them custom order this car from them, and then traded in her RAV-4. Two weeks later, she came back and demanded her RAV-4 back, and traded in the Mazda, because it was "too small". What a dumbass. But what a saint. If this car hadn't been "used", I wouldn't have been able to afford it. I love that idiotic woman, wherever she may be. Since she'd traded it in, the dealership was letting one of their managers drive it back and forth from home, so it had less than 4,000 miles on it when I test drove it.
When we pulled back in to the dealership, we sat down with Steve and started talking numbers, which is not my forte, in case you hadn't noticed. And in addition to numbers, it was responsible-person numbers. Like, grown-up situation numbers. Important shit numbers. And they were all big. Put all that together, and I usually end up in the fetal position. At one point, Steve was waiting for me/us to give him some feedback on the numbers he was showing us, and I said,"I have problems deciding what cereal to eat in the morning, sir. So you can imagine what this is like for me."
Dad told him that we were going to go down to the Honda lot to check out the Fits, and Steve asked what he could do to get us to NOT go. Dad told him, and he had to go "talk to his manager". Haha! I thought that used car salesmen only said that in sitcoms. He returned with a slightly lower number, and Dad talked him down one more time and then we had a deal.
Once the deal was made, we still had a lot of shit to do. We had to switch my insurance, get new tags, and we had to get Mom up to Hanover with the title to the Saturn, because it was her and Dad's car that we were trading in. But, Hanna was trying to bully Mom into not coming. Mom said there were recyclable bins floating down Main Street when she turned at the light in Market Square. Luckily, Mom made it safely to the dealership and everything went smoothly from there.
Next up was the ordeal of getting all of my shit outta the Saturn and into my hot new vehicle.
Remember when I "got rid" of all of that shit from my old apartment? Well...yeah...I got rid of some of it, but there were still some leftovers in my trunk from that whole situation. I hadn't gone to Goodwill to drop off the broken stuff yet, so that was all still in my car. We transferred that clutter, and the glove compartment had a bunch of little things, and the armrest compartment's stash. I took my "crispy Christian clip" and my "Your Mom" patch down off of my visors, as well as my Dragon Balls from my rear-view mirror. I'm not sure any of the kitschy stuff will find a home in my new car, but you never know...
I bade a fond farewell to the ol' Saturn...(it might have included a certain finger being hoisted at it, had it not been my Mom taking the pic, even though that old plastic bucket o' bolts and I shared some epic moments, and it treated me better than I deserved for a while...)
I was sad about not taking down my DC Universe pins out of my ceiling, though.
I left them in there because they were holding up the ceiling liner, so it wouldn't droop into the view of the driver. They were free, so I left 'em in there. There was one that was technically a collectible, but oh well. I'll likely be able to get more at the end of this month when we hit the Baltimore Convention. Woot.
Details about the car that make me happy:
It's mine
7-Speaker Bose sound system >>spooge!!<<
Moon roof
Black leather seats
Heated front seats
2.3 L engine
All-weather floor mats
Traction control
Auxiliary-in port for iPod
6-Disc CD changer
Xeon lights (I'm on the fence about this, because I hate those on other cars, cuz they hurt my eyes, but I'm becoming a fan of my own...)
Oh...and did I mention the 7-Speaker Bose sound system >>re-spooge!!<<
Back in the day, Big Bro Jeff had a Mazda 626. He also had a nickname: Nauz. (He still answers to this name to this day.) Juxtaposing these two bits into one, Jeff drove the Nauzda. It only seems fitting that I, in an effort to continue this silly idea of self-branding everything to do with me as "The Tauz", while also trying to honor the Tauz-Fam Mazda predecessor, shall call my new, beautiful car "The Tauzda".
I love it so much that I gave it a hug! Here's to good times yet to come in my new kickass ride...
(P.S.- I will post more pic's later this week, too.)
