Sunday, September 17, 2006

The Great Car Fiasco of 2006

So this past Monday the 11th one of the guys Chris works with offered to sell him his car, a 2000 Ford Focus for $1,000. The next day he brought it to the job site and Chris said "you want to sell me this car for a 1,000 bucks?" The guy said yes so Chris called me on the phone, I checked it out on the internet, and found out it was worth $3,500-$4,000. Now my Saturn is a 95 that drinks oil and antifreeze and has 210,000 miles on it. Needless to say we were very interested. We didn't want to barrow money to get it so we put my car up for sale and thought of what we could pawn to come up with the $1,000. Late Tuesday night I cleaned the car out and Wednesday morning Chris drove it to a vacant lot near a main street and rode back home on a bike. Later Wednesday Chris' co-worker, George, suggested payments. We were comfortable with payments with the stipulation that we would not take ownership until the car was paid off. After work Chris drove by my Saturn on his way home and found a ticket for $50. So he came home rode the bike back to the lot and brought my car home. Only one person called on it that day. He left a message telling us to call him back but didn't leave a phone number. So Thursday someone else or maybe the same guy called. We ended up selling him the Saturn for $600. I think he got a great deal Chris thinks we ripped him off. So George and his girlfriend were suppose to get a new car this weekend and then we would buy the Focus. No such luck. She looked Thursday, they both looked Friday and Saturday but didn't find "the one." So here we are with no Saturn and a truck that seats two comfortably. Luckily, church is close by because to get there today, Anna's car seat was on the passenger's side seat, Sam's car seat was in the middle with my arm hanging over it to try to reach the shifter, and Chris was in the back of the truck in his fold out camping chair. It was great! You should have seen Brother VanDeventer's face when Chris climbed out the back. Well anyway here we are waiting for a car. Hopefully George stays true to his word and sells us the car sometime this year. If not, I guess We'll have to wait till tax time to get something. In the mean time I don't think we will be going a lot of places with the whole family.

This was my Saturn. Notice that the hubcap is missing. Actually all the hubcaps were missing. I went through this bad curb hitting stage when I first got it. There are also a couple of skid marks on the side from the time I hit the safety railing. Poor car.

This is the car I want that George is holding onto for dear life. I can't say I blame him. Can you imagine what his girlfriend's reaction was when he said he was going to sell this car for $1,000?

This is how the car seats were arranged on our way to church. It was great, Sam kept trying to wrap his legs around my arm while I was shifting.

This is where Chris sat on the way there. I'm not sure which one of us got the short end of the stick on that one.

3 comments:

Haley Rachelle said...

Thank you for praying! I really want a car. Chris' truck has some quirks I didn't mention. You have to push on the door and then pull up to get it open and then once you are in you have to slam the door at least three times to get it to stay shut. Then to get out there is this metal rod that you have to push on. On top of that, the camper shell makes it so you can't see anything behind you. Changing lanes is so scary!

cokelady said...

HA!!! That is hilarious!!! I'm glad you mentioned something about the camper shell, because I was picturing Chris sitting in the back of an open air truck in his little fold up chair, waving at passersby like the homecoming queen or something! That would have been better yet. ;-)

Haley Rachelle said...

Terra - I guess I should be glad that the doors on the truck are so hard to open. I think on the passenger's side you have to roll the window down and grab the handle outside to open it.

Becki - Ha ha ha ha! Like the homecoming queen! Ha ha that's great. We should get him a tiara. Good thing we have the camper shell, we went right by a cop. That made me a little nervous.