At last...a car...kinda

Saturday-You want to know what I was doing from the 18th to the 20th? I was working like crazy. I'll get you the details of our banal life, without all of the boring waiting around that I have to experience just because I'm living it.

I found three more 2002-03 Mazda Proteges on www.autotrader.com. Actually, I found about 12 more, but they were either sold already, too far away (Who's going to drive 144 miles for a car? Not me, or really, not Daryl.), or without power windows or locks. We looked at the same 2003 Mazda Protege that we saw last time only because I called ahead and they said they had another one on the lot. Liars! We almost went for that one, but I had one last Protege in East LA. It's a 2002, which, by the way, is pretty similar. We (Daryl) drove all of the way over there and test drove the car. They had it running while it was being cleaned so it was already cold from the AC. Daryl liked the way it drove and it had not only power windows and locks, but a moonroof as well. Well, fancy that. The seat belt worked in this one so I was fine with it. Daryl checked out all the switches and discovered the trunk latch didn't work. Minor problem, they said they'd fix it. We were sold, so we went into the dingy little office. They offered us a deal, we said no and then they left for a long time. They offered us another deal, we said no and then they left for a long time. They offered us another deal and we said yes, finally because by this time we'd been waiting for around two hours. I actually read through two articles in The New Yorker before we left. At least they let us sit in the air conditioned office. They were very nice salesmen and I think the fact that some of them didn't speak English actually worked in our favor. Or maybe we've been duped. In any case, we were all happy with the deal and our payments will definitely be under $200 which is what I was working for, and Daryl finally found a car he'd like to drive. We couldn't take the car with us since they had to fix the trunk latch, so we have to pick it up Monday. So we bought a car, but we don't really have it...yet.

By the way, it was scorching hot. Our apartment was very nearly unbearable. We haven't got air conditioning and we can't really get a window unit anyway because our windows are slatted. We have ceiling fans, but heck, we're on the second floor. with a southern exposure. The funny thing is that when we left the apartment it was cooler outside and when we got into the car, which does have AC, we audibly sighed from the relief. Now that's hot. It's funny, our apartment in SF was always cooler than the outside temperature, here it seems that the apartment is hotter than the outside temp.