Also by Janice MacDonald:
Brave New Neighborhoods: 'Net Communities
Seeing Red: The Psychology of Car Colors
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Buying a car is a lot like having a baby. It's impossible to plan until you're right in the throes of it. It becomes an overpowering obsession and all you can talk about for the months or weeks ahead of the big day. Everyone has an opinion, and there is plenty of reading material available, but when you hit the dealership you're on your own, and everyone's experience will be slightly different. It's always more expensive than you envision it being. You have to fight to retain control of the situation at a point where you're at your most vulnerable. And, like having a baby, as soon as you drive off the lot, you magically forget the pain of the process, and find yourself giggling and showing her off to everyone.
I am not a car person. By that I mean, that although I truly loved the car I named Emily (a joke only Canadians understand — Emily Carr was a famous artist up here in the tundra), I never drooled over cars or considered weekend car shows an entertaining excursion.
I hadn't meant to buy a new car. In fact, I hadn't wanted to buy a car at all, until I took eleven-year old Emily in for a fall tune-up; the mechanic gave me a list of needed repairs and explained to me just what a broken strut could do. My stalwart little vehicle wouldn't, as I had thought, just slow to a forced stop on the side of the road when she gave up the ghost. Chances were much better that she would careen into oncoming traffic, killing everyone in sight. Since my car is used mainly to transport precious cargo (two daughters), I went out and immediately bought a car magazine.
I devoured every scrap of material I could find on cars: makes, models, options, and yes... colors. (I prefer not to think of this as some sort of gender weakness. For me it was a mixture of safety consciousness combined with an ecologically motivated political statement. I didn't want a car that would disappear to other drivers in sun glare or snowstorms; neither did I want to pretend that this huge carbon-emitting beast was somehow "nature-friendly" in a forest green. I intended to take full responsibility for my actions. Besides, I think red cars look friendlier.) All I wanted was a replacement for Emily, my serviceable and lovely little Omni. Dodge had replaced Omnis with Neons. All my research indicated that I should, too.
Most articles on the psychology of buying cars suggest that you rent a man to take along with you, as car dealers treat lone women like idiots. I bristled at this instinctively, and chose not to heed the advice. While I likely am an idiot when it comes to cars, there was something in me that both wanted to give the dealers a sporting chance to redeem their reputations and to be able to pick a fight if need be. I did, however, see the sense of not going alone into the lion's den. Since the only man I trusted was several thousand miles away, working in the United States, I invited my mother along. She'd been the most valuable person to me at the birth of my first child as well.
We took a test drive in a nearby residential area that I knew was hilly and wouldn't be plowed. The car cheerfully chugged up and down and around, never slipping once. We checked the headroom and leg room in all the seats, since I am blessed with an inordinately tall family (I'm 5'11", my husband is 6' 3", our ten year old is almost 5', and even our five year old is already topping 4'). I was impressed with how luxurious even budget cars have become in twelve years. The doors "thunked" with that big car sound; the seats were comfortable, and the buttons, latches and gizmos were all placed with ergonomic efficiency. For a car that wasn't much bigger than Emily, the Neon seemed incredibly roomy. We drove back to the dealership impressed.
We walked into the saleman's office, and I knew that this was the big moment. I wasn't just hoping to get a fair and affordable price, I wanted to be able to prove to my friends and family that I hadn't been sideswiped by sales techniques. I wanted to prove my mettle, to be firm and sensible. I had no illusions of breaking the salesman or getting out of there without paying more than the car was worth; but I did want to feel that things had been fair.
We settled on the models I didn't want, and as he sat going through the manifests to find a red version of the model I did want, I produced some print-outs of safety reports I'd taken off the Internet to show to my mother. I'm not sure if her tut-tutting over the commentary on the '97 model helped matters, but I am sure that things were oiled a bit by her well-timed retort, "Are you sure you shouldn't just get a Honda?" All of a sudden, the red model sitting outside his office in the show room was exactly the right car.
He tallied up the $500 discount for "coming back to Chrysler," the $1,000 rebate for buying a '98 Neon, and another $1,000 for my darling old Emily (even I knew she wasn't worth that, except in terms of years of loyal service) — and suddenly we were within a thousand dollars of my budget. I asked to see the option list. While I was perusing it, my mother managed to bring him down three hundred dollars more by sniffing at the fact that it was the "floor model" that everyone had been tromping through.
I broke in: "It has air conditioning."
"Yes, it does!"
"But I don't want air conditioning."
I am not violently opposed to air conditioning, but never having had it, I knew that it wasn't a necessity in my part of the world — and it was a pretty pricy option. The salesman explained that since most people wanted it, ninety percent of all the cars delivered had it already installed. He pointed out that it would be a good item for resale. I pointed outside to my old car and replied that I intended to continue to drag cars in only when they were past resale value, so that wasn't really a consideration. I went on to say that it was irritating to be made to pay for an option I didn't want when there were options I would rather have had that weren't included.
"What did you want instead?" he asked, with a sort of fatalistic weariness creeping into his voice. I wasn't thinking strategically at this point. I hadn't eaten since seven that morning, and it was already late afternoon. I think it had more to do with my blood sugar lowering than being a canny consumer, but his tone of voice made me cranky and I pushed on.
"Well, I'd much rather have a stereo cassette installed than air conditioning. Why don't they come standard with cassette decks instead?"
My mother jumped right into her predetermined role of "good cop" and began to make conciliatory comments about air conditioning. I felt myself emulating my youngest daughter, even down to the querulous set of the jaw, and replied that I hated air conditioning. At that particular moment, I didn't want a new car. I wanted a bagel.
Finally, sensing an afternoon's work about to be lost, the salesman asked if I would take the air conditioning if they installed a casette stereo for free. It struck me that this was not the way normal bargaining was done, but I wasn't about to bicker. I relented, and agreed to live with the air conditioning. My mother said brightly, "It's not as if you have to turn it on!" In a final flurry of signatures, I was suddenly the owner of a new car.
The nicest thing about friends is that they immediately support your major purchases once they've been made. Even my brother-in-law, who had previously diplomatically stated that he thought Neons were "the spawn of Satan", told me that I'd made a good purchase for a good price. Of course, no one with any tact at all would ever peer into a pram and comment on your new baby being ugly, which is just as well.
Since I've never before had a "car gene," I was completely unprepared for the delight I take in washing and polishing and driving Carmen (she whispered her name to me as I was waiting for the salesman to come out with the extra keys). I've washed her more often in the last three months than I washed Emily in the last three years. Maybe I've got a "shiny red car" gene. All I know is that she is sporty, sassy, cute, and efficient — all things we value in this family. I hope to have her for a good long time, because having her is a lot more fun than getting her, which is much the way I feel about my kids (whom I never intend to trade in).
Janice MacDonald is a Canadian writer living in Edmonton, Alberta. Her latest book for children, The Ghouls' Night Out, was published in 1998 by Ronsdale Press.
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