It was an unseasonably cool day in April of 2022, as I recall. I was sitting, alone, in my husband’s truck, in front of a mobile home, inside of a trailer park, in a distant city. It reminded me, even then, of that children’s song about the hole in the log on the floor at the bottom of the sea. I hummed nervously and these words ran through my mind. “There’s a woman in a truck at a trailer in a trailer park in a city nowhere near the bottom of the sea.” Brilliant lyricist I am not. I could no longer see my husband. He had stepped inside of the home with a man I did not know. There had been a confusing attempt at conversation using various forms of broken English (the man), shattered Spanish (my husband), and a translation phone app. It was taking forever, this errand. Plus, the dog factors into this. Granted, I had not seen the dog. But, I’d heard it barking, barking, barking. I bet you’re wondering what sort of underworld crime, podcast worthy danger we’d gotten ourselves into. Same. We were worried, too. But, no crimes were involved. Well, that’s not entirely true. Still, we were just two people who hate spending money trying to buy a used car. But first, we must go back to where this all began. I call it the ultimate saga of coincidences.
In 2021, my husband, a then city councilman, pulled up to a council meeting in his beloved Toyota Sequoia that had just clicked over the 300,000-mile reading. He loved this car. There was a bang, a shaking sensation, and a dragon slayer worthy amount of steam emanating from under the hood. “That’s it,” says he, “I can’t do this anymore.” At around the 200,000 mark, keeping the Sequoia alive became a source of immense pride to him. Now he had to allow his faithful steed to graze in that big racetrack in the sky. We made our plan. He would take my truck. I was busy carting my mom around to a maze of weekly doctor’s appointments in her car. Getting up and down from a truck had become nearly impossible for her. I would take over my mom’s nearly 20-yearold car with absurdly low mileage. Easy! After my mom’s death, driving her car held a slew of bad memories, reminders of loss and frustration. So, we sold it. My husband decided I needed a new car. And, boy, did he get me one, the car I’d always wanted. From the first moment behind the wheel of my leather clad little slice of exclusive heaven, I knew we’d made a huge error. We are not folks who enjoy car payments. Plus, I was terrified of the universe deciding I was undeserving of such a nice car, sending someone crashing into me. At that exact moment, ok – that’s exaggeration for effect, but it seemed like the exact moment – the transmission on our truck went out as we were pulling our tiny camper on our first camper adventure. Poof went the plans. We did the unthinkable, trading in the poopy transmission truck and the fancy car I was too afraid to drive for a better truck for him. Months later, it was time to track down the cash car I could drive around, payment free. Easy fix, right? Surely we can locate an affordable, not embarrassing grocery getter for me? After several dealership bait and switch catastrophes, multiple Facebook Marketplace attempted thievery incidents, and a few Nigerian princes who just wanted to get home on my dime, we located a cute as a button Jeep with a salvage title that led to a “dealership” that turned out to be a trailer park near DFW airport. Now, we’re caught up! “Honey,” he says as he exits the mobile home and approaches me still waiting in the truck, “He agreed on my price. I communicated in writing, through his daughter on the phone, and with the app. You just got yourself a car.” Rule #1 – don’t get cocky. “He wants you to stay here in the trailer with his wife while I go with him to get the car inspected.” I narrowed my eyes into impossibly narrow slits. “If you think, for one minute, that I am going INSIDE of that mobile home while you leave, think again, buster. I realize there is no sex trafficking market for the mid 50s gal, but this is fast becoming a Criminal Minds episode. I go where you go, dude.” And, so we went. First we went to a national oil change franchise where a manager promptly told us the window tent on my future car was illegal. We then went to an independently owned inspection/ gas station where we were turned away, once again. There were many phone calls by the “man.” There was some erratic driving. I was very busy in the back seat with all my note taking, pin dropping, and texting to the adult kiddos. I snapped some covert pics of our host. I had shots of his mobile home. I pulled approximately 5 hairs out by the follicle and laid them in the floorboard. I placed my well chewed gum into a wrapper and laid it gently in the door inset. As we pulled into the 3rd inspection station in an obviously dicier section of town, I regretted the entire adventure. But, that’s when things took a turn for the better. We miraculously passed! On we went for title signing with another member of the “dealership” team who happened to also be a notary. Now we were sitting in a storage unit at a railroad spool table. A pen was produced. The man signed the title. My husband signed the title. Cash was produced. Then, it happened. The seller decided on the original amount over the amount agreed upon using numbers on paper, a translation app, and the Englishspeaking daughter. The deal was off. My husband was clearly nervous, a look I am not accustomed to seeing. He grabbed his cash from the man. “Let’s go,” he says to me. We absolutely stomp out of the dark storage space into bright light, realizing our bravado was useless since we rode there with this man! Spoiler alert – we made it out alive and managed to buy the car for the cash we had originally agreed upon.
Moral of the story – it takes a lot of effort to be this cheap. Moral of the story, part 2 – crime shows make for smart wives. Also, I love Betty, my no payment car with the salvage title. Also, don’t drive with illegally tinted windows. The end.
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