Vrrrrrrrooooooooooooooooom!
I BOUGHT A NEW CAR!!!!!!!
After months (years) of bitching and moaning about my trucklette (the Xtreme), Jason and I went honest-to-goodness car shopping yesterday. I attempted to test-drive a Pruis, just to tell myself I made the good-faith effort to drive that turd-on-wheels. All sold out. Apparently, in PCola, the Prius has a 4-hour lot life. No sooner is it in-processed on the lot than its keys are handed over to a new owner and POOF! No Prius to test-drive. The backorder here is to June 6th; a guy at work with family in the midwest said last week the wait there was 5 months. Which is fine, because I didn't want that fugly little car anyway (yes, I'd rather drive the Aptera, which I decided at 1:30 this morning most closely resembles a thought bubble).
I really, truly bought a new car -- brand-spankin'-new! -- and this is me with my new ride!!
It's a 2008 Saturn Sky Redline turbo, and I'm the first owner! I'm the first Helmes to own a new car, ever. In 2002, I became the first Helmes to own a car with functional air conditioning. So I'm a natural trail-blazer.
It's the red convertible I've always wanted! I've already stashed in the precious-few storage spaces (Jason bought me the "saddle bag" that goes over the center console) hair spray, hair bands and small cliips, a hat, SPF 15 lip balm and SPF 30 cream. I'm on it, baby! In a couple of weeks, I'm getting UVA/UVB protective tint on the windows, too, and am considering a "car bra" -- even though I think they're ugly, they guard against the paint damage done by bugs who have the audacity to die on the front of my car, as one did on my formerly-crystal-clear windshield this morning. Punk.
I'm proud to report that I managed to get 25.5 mpg on the city streets this morning, and 30.3 mpg on the highway -- pretty good compared to the 17mpg I was lucky to get in my pickup. And the air conditioning works like a charm, which is more than I could ever say for the truck, which had been to the dealership for a/c repairs all 3 summers I'd owned it, to no avail, but to the clear detriment of my bank account. And, unlike a hybrid, I don't have to shell out $3,000 to $5,000 for a new battery in 2 or 3 years. It takes regular unleaded -- soooo thankful for that! But it's all in my pricerange, and per-month works out to pretty much the limit I'd set for myself, maybe a few dollars cheaper. It is a DREAM to drive it -- it turns corners like they're corners, not the ellipse around the Arc de Triomphe. It accelerates in real-time -- the truck took a good hour, hour-and-a-half to go from 0-60 (ballpark).
I traded in the truck, because the amt they offered for trade, plus all the incentives we got on the purchase for Mem Day wkend, broke us even (compared with the fact that I've listed and unsuccessfully been selling the car since October 2007, and by the time I put work into the a/c and the front spoiler, which was cracked, plus regular payments, I'd have dumped another $2,000 into it -- it would have cost more to keep it. We did the math several times on that one to be sure, and it checked out every time. Of course, we had to negotiate our way up to the trade-in price we got, which was a few hundred shy of our desired price, but only because the guy who does trades is a raging prick. The guy who sold me the car, on the other hand -- Cornell, the guy in the pic -- was really cool. He was clearly nicer than the usual slimeballs that try to sell cars. He was so nice, I took this pic with him! :)
So it smells all new, and it feels perfect! It's just right -- tiny, zippy, and RED!
Of course, despite my generally small stature, it's still a bitch to get in and out of. The problem with being small is that you have to move the seat so far up to reach the pedals properly that, when it comes time to get out of the car, you can't. Me getting out of that car, hips and legs in the way, is probably the least graceful thing you'll ever witness. I still have to get used to it; I back up like I still have a truckbed to account for. And I am terrified to pull up to a spot with a little concrete block at the front, because I have only 4" clearance, and after cracking my front spoiler on the truck REPEATEDLY, I'm all sortsa cautious. I went to the drive-thru at the bank today, and drove up close enough to reach the machine, but was too low. And had to open the door to get to the little bottle thing that gets sucked up to the teller's window. And this involved gingerly opening the door and side-stepping my left foot out the door, because my closeness to the machine meant I was in danger of hitting the concrete blockers with my brand new, not-yet-mine-for-a-full-day-even, car door.
I polished it all last night and this morning with the tshirt that I was wearing. TOTAL night-and-day attitude (I felt like that about the truck at first, but it seems more indestructible by nature, number one; and number two, once it started breaking (in July 2005, after a "friend" of mine abused the hell out of it for 2-1/2 months -- we broke up, and were just living together waiting for the other to die (me and the truck, I mean...)).
I bought a car cover on ebay today for $20, which beats the hell out of the $350 the Saturn dealership wanted. I just need it to keep the neighbor's many random cats off the hood, which was their fave place on my truck before. I already told Jason, if I find so much as a cat hair, to say nothing of a pawprint, on my new car, I will commit Catricide. You'll never see another cat in the neighborhood again... and you'll never see another print on my brand new car. So, rather than become an evil, cat-hating person (I already hate cats, due in large part to allergies, but with the propensity to be due entirely to scratches in automotive paint), I figure it best to add a car cover. I also got a lock, so it doesn't blow away, and so, just in case the cats sprout opposable thumbs overnight, they don't take the damned thing off.
I also got an ipod-car adapter cable, so I can plug it directly into the input in the dash (the radio is awesome, and includes XM), and just also procured Pat Benatar's Greatest Hits (I was disappointed to learn this morning that the cd with "All Fired Up," which I'd really wanted to listen to ad nauseum in the car on the way to work this morning, was the one of the 2-cd set that I'd lost back in 2003 when I lost appx 20 random CDs for no apparent reason... literally, right out of the book, which I kept in my apartment. That pissed me off ROYALLY; I'm OCD enough to mentally inventory everything I've ever owned, and to this day I'm irritated about the cds. But I digress...). I also acquired NKOTB's Superhits CD, and before any of you go lecturing me on where I spend my money, and did-I-really-need-that-cd, I think if you know me well enough, you know the answer to that question is Yes. Yes, I do.
So Jordan, Joey, Jon, Danny, Donnie, Pat and I will have a lovely ride home this afternoon...
IN MY NEW CAR!!!!
After months (years) of bitching and moaning about my trucklette (the Xtreme), Jason and I went honest-to-goodness car shopping yesterday. I attempted to test-drive a Pruis, just to tell myself I made the good-faith effort to drive that turd-on-wheels. All sold out. Apparently, in PCola, the Prius has a 4-hour lot life. No sooner is it in-processed on the lot than its keys are handed over to a new owner and POOF! No Prius to test-drive. The backorder here is to June 6th; a guy at work with family in the midwest said last week the wait there was 5 months. Which is fine, because I didn't want that fugly little car anyway (yes, I'd rather drive the Aptera, which I decided at 1:30 this morning most closely resembles a thought bubble).
I really, truly bought a new car -- brand-spankin'-new! -- and this is me with my new ride!!
It's a 2008 Saturn Sky Redline turbo, and I'm the first owner! I'm the first Helmes to own a new car, ever. In 2002, I became the first Helmes to own a car with functional air conditioning. So I'm a natural trail-blazer.
It's the red convertible I've always wanted! I've already stashed in the precious-few storage spaces (Jason bought me the "saddle bag" that goes over the center console) hair spray, hair bands and small cliips, a hat, SPF 15 lip balm and SPF 30 cream. I'm on it, baby! In a couple of weeks, I'm getting UVA/UVB protective tint on the windows, too, and am considering a "car bra" -- even though I think they're ugly, they guard against the paint damage done by bugs who have the audacity to die on the front of my car, as one did on my formerly-crystal-clear windshield this morning. Punk.
I'm proud to report that I managed to get 25.5 mpg on the city streets this morning, and 30.3 mpg on the highway -- pretty good compared to the 17mpg I was lucky to get in my pickup. And the air conditioning works like a charm, which is more than I could ever say for the truck, which had been to the dealership for a/c repairs all 3 summers I'd owned it, to no avail, but to the clear detriment of my bank account. And, unlike a hybrid, I don't have to shell out $3,000 to $5,000 for a new battery in 2 or 3 years. It takes regular unleaded -- soooo thankful for that! But it's all in my pricerange, and per-month works out to pretty much the limit I'd set for myself, maybe a few dollars cheaper. It is a DREAM to drive it -- it turns corners like they're corners, not the ellipse around the Arc de Triomphe. It accelerates in real-time -- the truck took a good hour, hour-and-a-half to go from 0-60 (ballpark).
I traded in the truck, because the amt they offered for trade, plus all the incentives we got on the purchase for Mem Day wkend, broke us even (compared with the fact that I've listed and unsuccessfully been selling the car since October 2007, and by the time I put work into the a/c and the front spoiler, which was cracked, plus regular payments, I'd have dumped another $2,000 into it -- it would have cost more to keep it. We did the math several times on that one to be sure, and it checked out every time. Of course, we had to negotiate our way up to the trade-in price we got, which was a few hundred shy of our desired price, but only because the guy who does trades is a raging prick. The guy who sold me the car, on the other hand -- Cornell, the guy in the pic -- was really cool. He was clearly nicer than the usual slimeballs that try to sell cars. He was so nice, I took this pic with him! :)
So it smells all new, and it feels perfect! It's just right -- tiny, zippy, and RED!
Of course, despite my generally small stature, it's still a bitch to get in and out of. The problem with being small is that you have to move the seat so far up to reach the pedals properly that, when it comes time to get out of the car, you can't. Me getting out of that car, hips and legs in the way, is probably the least graceful thing you'll ever witness. I still have to get used to it; I back up like I still have a truckbed to account for. And I am terrified to pull up to a spot with a little concrete block at the front, because I have only 4" clearance, and after cracking my front spoiler on the truck REPEATEDLY, I'm all sortsa cautious. I went to the drive-thru at the bank today, and drove up close enough to reach the machine, but was too low. And had to open the door to get to the little bottle thing that gets sucked up to the teller's window. And this involved gingerly opening the door and side-stepping my left foot out the door, because my closeness to the machine meant I was in danger of hitting the concrete blockers with my brand new, not-yet-mine-for-a-full-day-even, car door.
I polished it all last night and this morning with the tshirt that I was wearing. TOTAL night-and-day attitude (I felt like that about the truck at first, but it seems more indestructible by nature, number one; and number two, once it started breaking (in July 2005, after a "friend" of mine abused the hell out of it for 2-1/2 months -- we broke up, and were just living together waiting for the other to die (me and the truck, I mean...)).
I bought a car cover on ebay today for $20, which beats the hell out of the $350 the Saturn dealership wanted. I just need it to keep the neighbor's many random cats off the hood, which was their fave place on my truck before. I already told Jason, if I find so much as a cat hair, to say nothing of a pawprint, on my new car, I will commit Catricide. You'll never see another cat in the neighborhood again... and you'll never see another print on my brand new car. So, rather than become an evil, cat-hating person (I already hate cats, due in large part to allergies, but with the propensity to be due entirely to scratches in automotive paint), I figure it best to add a car cover. I also got a lock, so it doesn't blow away, and so, just in case the cats sprout opposable thumbs overnight, they don't take the damned thing off.
I also got an ipod-car adapter cable, so I can plug it directly into the input in the dash (the radio is awesome, and includes XM), and just also procured Pat Benatar's Greatest Hits (I was disappointed to learn this morning that the cd with "All Fired Up," which I'd really wanted to listen to ad nauseum in the car on the way to work this morning, was the one of the 2-cd set that I'd lost back in 2003 when I lost appx 20 random CDs for no apparent reason... literally, right out of the book, which I kept in my apartment. That pissed me off ROYALLY; I'm OCD enough to mentally inventory everything I've ever owned, and to this day I'm irritated about the cds. But I digress...). I also acquired NKOTB's Superhits CD, and before any of you go lecturing me on where I spend my money, and did-I-really-need-that-cd, I think if you know me well enough, you know the answer to that question is Yes. Yes, I do.
So Jordan, Joey, Jon, Danny, Donnie, Pat and I will have a lovely ride home this afternoon...
IN MY NEW CAR!!!!