So interweb, we meet again. Enticed by your vast series of tubes, I am called to write some silliness in a venue where others can read it at will.
This is the f1rst p05t for the
other member of the much admired Team Sax. You might find my posts to be less personal in nature, but perhaps you'll find sufficient comedy in it as well. I have found myself often looking upon the phenomenon of "blogging" as somewhat comical, as there were lots of us who made a little webpage when the tubes were first cast by folks like Al Gore. At the time, no one cared. Not even the other people who made webpages. To see it come around again to the point where my artsy fartsy sister does it regularly is fascinating.
So let me contribute in some way, if I can, with an essay ("to try") and with my contribution perhaps advance the limits of human understanding and communication. I call this first essay: Car Dealers and Hank Hill.
My wife and I recently moved into our first house. By recently, I mean in January. Time is relative after all. Anyway, we are a new generation, up and coming, our friends are mostly renting, some are getting married, some are finding their way. Some of them have already begun to ask us for advice, because some things we've been through before. We have married friends too, some are homeowners, others more itinerant, but we are all sharing experiences and figuring out all the little things that you have to do in this whole adulthood thing.
This in and of itself is rather boring. But here's what's interesting. Car dealers. We bought a prius from a Toyota dealer, Orisman Chantilly. The sales gal was a Marine. This was a generally good experience, up until we got to the part of buying our car where we delt with other people at the dealership. The first woman was
adamant that we get all sorts of extras. Undercoating, sealants, rug cleaning stuff.. all worthless. For the package they wanted some outrageous figure, like 600 dollars or 800 or some such. Not even worth a hundred bucks, really. Anyway, she seemed determined to sell us. She talked about her 50,000$ suv and how she got it all and was pretty much clueless about everything. Well, that's fine, but we're not clueless, so I don't know why she felt the need to project. I think she thought we were negotiating with her with our stony declines, because after a while the price dropped by hundreds of dollars. So if you do want that stuff, just say no for a while. Duh.
Anyhow after that gal, they stuck us with a financier, because who wouldn't take advantage of 0% for 2 years? No brainer. Well the price we paid was that we had to sit through a bunch of BS with this guy about gap insurance and other crapola. I told him we didn't need it, but that just means we entered the first round of discounts.
As he was talking, I started to notice that I was getting this feeling, deep in my stomach. Then I realized what was going on. This guy was annoying. I'm not used to that. I'm used to trying my best to make nice people like me. How do you tell someone to F off when you're trained by the people you surround yourself with to be so nice? It's hard. But Claire and I are learning.
After this, other stuff happened. I found myself on the phone with a Volvo mechanic who was actually _helping_ me with a car problem. This was a different feeling than I'd gotten when dealing with the dealership. It was like dealing with Hank Hill. Here's a mechanic that actually went out of his way to find cheaper parts for me, and fix things instead of just replacing them. Then we had an HVAC problem. When we bought our house we got 10k in closing costs, so when our realtor asked if we wanted a 300$ home warranty, we said "does a bear squeeze Charmin in the woods?" Well, we called up the company last week and said " our fan isn't turning off, looks like the relay is stuck." -Basically handing them a diagnosis for the problem. They sent out "parish services" who refused to put in a new relay. Instead they made me initial that I declined their maintenance plan, and wrote on my report "no guarantees how long it will last." Then they put stickers on my water heater. When I called them to complain, their number was disconnected. To make it up to me, 2-10 sent out another company, that came out the next day, put a new circuit board in, and tested everything thoroughly. He seemed like the king of the hill after the other yahoo we had out. That's when I realized I had the same feeling with parish services as we'd had at Orisman toyota.
So here's a list of car dealers and Hank Hills we've found so far. We identified the "car dealers" by the smell of BS wafting out of every word they say, and the "Kings of the hill" by their quiet, helpful nature. Maybe you'll find the info useful.
--Car Dealers--
Orisman Chantilly
Fairfax Volvo
Olympic auto parts
Parish Services
Shell
Navy Federal Credit Union's Mortgage
Microsoft
Cingular AT&T
L3 Communications
Dell
Ebay
Fox "news"
Casino's - Be honest with yourselves people. It's not entertaining.
Best Buy
Bailey Banks Biddle
Van Metre Ffx Sq
Fairfax Circle Apartments
--Hank Hill--
Residential Services inc
Viking Automotive
Morty's Auto
Apple computers
BF Saul mortgage
The Department of the Navy(including Marine Corps)
Craig's List
The Exxon on rt. 50 between 66 and the Ffx co. parkway
Panasonic
Lowman Piano tuning
Heltzberg(sp?) diamonds
C&V Floors
