Between the upcoming arrival of Brown Brown and the slow and painful death of Adam\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s car, it was finally time to break down and buy a new vehicle. Adam was stressing this much more than me, mainly because his car doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have air conditioning, and his summer job requires a commute of over an hour and he needs to wear a suit (the car also doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have heat anymore, but that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not a concern at this point). I let Adam do all the research, because, frankly, I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t care that much. Let me say straight up that this is not a gender thing. It’s just that I see a car as a way of getting from Point A to Point B. They just don’t matter to me. They matter to Adam. We knew we wanted a wagon and we knew we wanted it used and I want every safety feature on it known to mankind. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be taking the new car and Adam will inherit the Pimpmobile, the Toyota Camry hand-me-down that I drive (named for its gold trim and wheels and tinted windows).<\/p>\n
So off to the car dealership we went. On the way there, just to prove that I had been paying attention during the school year when he babbled on about his classes, I asked Adam with confidence, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153So what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s our BAFTA?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You mean BATNA, honey,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. Hmmm, guess I wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t paying as close attention as I thought I had been. (BAFTA<\/a> being the British Academy of Film and Television Arts and BATNA being the best alternative to negotiated agreement.) \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t make the common mistake,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153of confusing BATNA with the highest price we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re willing to pay.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Oh. Oops. Okay, so our BATNA is we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get a car at this dealership. Who says you can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t teach an old CWIT new tricks?<\/p>\n Once we get there, we take a look around and then the fun starts: working with a car salesman. Ours happened to be fairly nice, but he was still a car salesman. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d like an automatic,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I think it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be easier when there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a fussy baby in back.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153People say that all the time,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he says. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153A manual is just as easy with a baby. You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be in gear and can do what you need to do. Whether you have an automatic or a manual, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll still need to pull over to do most things.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Okay, true. But I want an automatic, so stop trying to push one of the three stick shifts you have on me. If you only have one automatic and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not the one we want, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll go elsewhere, and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fine.<\/p>\n I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d see things written on the car and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d ask about them. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153So what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the difference between the turbo and the V-6?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Our salesman would launch into an explanation and within five seconds, my mind is off wondering if I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be able to get baby spit out of cloth seats or how good I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d look in the convertible on the back of the lot. Adam would listen carefully, nod along, and then ask appropriate follow-up questions. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d try to listen, but it was all just, well, so boring! But I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d still feel compelled to ask other questions, and again, not pay any attention to the answer. The only thing I did ask and pay attention to was at every car, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d say, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Does this have LATCH<\/a>?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (LATCH being the new anchoring system for car seats required in all cars built after 2002.) And at every car the salesman would say, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Yes, it has LATCH. All our cars since \u00e2\u20ac\u212200 have LATCH.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Adam accused me of being LATCH fixated, but it was the only thing I understood.<\/p>\n We test drive a few cars and finally one clicks with us. Now the negotiations begin. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153So would you pay this amount for the car?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Adam asks me. Sure, I reply. Naming another thousand higher, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153How about this amount?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Sure, I reply. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153What amount wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t<\/i> you pay at this point?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re the MBA,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I say. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You tell me.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Adam goes back and forth with the salesman. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m just hanging back and letting Adam do the work. Occasionally, when the salesman would go out to confer with his manager, Adam would say, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Well, what do you think?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d say, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I think I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t take a class in negotiations, and you did.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d He wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t crazy about having all the responsibility, but the fact is, the only two cars I’ve ever owned have been family hand-me-downs, so I’ve never been through this process before, and I find that for all my tough talk, it’s painful and intimidating. At last, a price is settled on and we make arrangements to pick up the car on Wednesday. Adam is thrilled. He loves our new car. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s jealous that I get to drive it. In fact, when he goes home, he does twice<\/i> as much research as he did beforehand to see what the factory specs of the car are. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It has an air filter!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he exclaims happily. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You and Brown Brown will breathe clean air!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Oh joy. I still think I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d look better behind the wheel of a convertible. Preferably this one<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Between the upcoming arrival of Brown Brown and the slow and painful death of Adam\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s car, it was finally time to break down and buy a new vehicle. Adam was stressing this much more than me, mainly because his car doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have air conditioning, and his summer job requires a commute of over an hour […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jennyandadam.com\/Jenny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jennyandadam.com\/Jenny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jennyandadam.com\/Jenny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jennyandadam.com\/Jenny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jennyandadam.com\/Jenny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jennyandadam.com\/Jenny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1076\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jennyandadam.com\/Jenny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jennyandadam.com\/Jenny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jennyandadam.com\/Jenny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}