The word boy rhymes with the word toy. A coincidence? I think not. Even us Louie-Louie Generation guys are still boys… although I must admit that many of us have been noticing lately that the songs we’ve been hearing in elevators seem to be getting better and better. But… we can deal with that. Big Louie, his own bad self, says that we should just “remember how much fun we always had making up our own dance moves to those songs.” He says “that’s a real attention getter in a crowded elevator.”I have always wanted to be a man of few words and many toys. And so it is that I sit here looking out the front window with great pride at the brand new car in my driveway…an eager steed ready to hurl itself onto the highway with a blur of high “G” acceleration… leaving long trails of smoking tires and fiery exhaust.
Some of you know that significant parts of the port of Dubai have been built on the proceeds from the barrels of one hundred octane aviation gas that my airplane has burned over the years…feeding my fix for power and speed. So you can imagine the gleam in my eye when I strode into the auto dealership and told the shocked young sales guy, “I have worked hard all my life…saving every nickel I could…and I now have… this… enormous pile of nickels…which I am going to spend on THAT CAR.” And with a flourish…I pointed away from the family oriented SUVs…the dowdy mid size sedans…the leftover last year’s models…I pointed…at the car I now call… SPEEDY!
The young sales guy was unprepared for that. He said…quote… what’s a nickel? (He was very young.) I explained that it is cold, hard cash. A look of trapped cunning came over him. A look that told me he was hoping to keep SPEEDY on the car lot at least until Saturday so he could drive it to a nearby singles watering hole to impress some bimbette. I said…”that’s the car I want. And there’s no use beating a dead horse about spilled milk…I want it now.”
A hush came over the sales floor. And another look I’ve seen before flashed for a moment across the young salesman’s face. It was the kind of look that you’ve seen on the face of a friend when you give him one of those radios that play even in a shower…and he wonders if you’re hoping he’ll start dancing on a slick soapy surface with a glass door.
The young sales guy knew negotiating time was upon him. I think he was about to panic… and maybe… slap a post it note saying “out to lunch” on his forehead. He knew he was dealing with an experienced car buyer…a guy who knew from accessories like an 8 track tape player, extra chrome hub caps, giant fins, and tinted glass. A guy who knew from experience that when you start negotiations for a puppy, you start by asking for a horse…a seasoned Louie-Louie Generation guy.
Then he asked it. The question I’d been dreading from the very beginning. He said…will it be straight cash or a trade in?
Ya know…some days you wonder why the frizbee is getting bigger and bigger…and then it hits you. By trade in…he meant my clunker. My faithful companion for 174 thousand miles together. My good old Belchfire v6 with am/fm and sometimes operational air conditioning. The car my offspring like to call their “father’s Oldsmobile.” And all of a sudden, I felt like I was selling a friend…and I simply couldn’t do it. No…it was an easy if expensive decision. My clunker was going to have to stay in the family…it was going to grace the driveway of one of the Summer sons…the one who knows his way around with a socket wrench and his local Pep Boys store.
The negotiation was short and some would say almost brutal. The computer industry has made it possible, through the almost magical data processing power of the micro chip and the internet, for anybody almost anywhere in the world to see Paris Hilton naked…and to run pricing checks on cars like SPEEDY. And the rest is… as they say… history. So there she sits…parked in my driveway. Gleaming. My brand new toy. SPEEDY.
Dick’s Details Quiz – all the answers are in the current PodCast at www.DickSummer.com .
1- What naughty thing do 35% of the people who visit singles web sites seem to have in mind?
2- In the “Mr. Small Talk” Bedtime Story, what was the pilot’s successful opening line with the lady horseback rider?
3- What does the sign that my Lady Wonder Wench put in my office say?
Scoring:
3 – right – There’s a new car in your future.
2 – right – There’s a used car in your future.
1 – right – Once you learn to ride a bike, you don’t forget.
0 – right – I hope you like your frisbee.
Oh yeah…my brand new car…sitting and gleaming out there in the driveway tonight…SPEEDY…I lied about the screaming high “G” acceleration, the burning tires and the fiery exhaust.
SPEEDY is a four cylinder Hundai Accent. Under the proper conditions, it goes from zero to 60 sometime during the same day you floor the gas pedal…and the new car smell inside reminds me of a North Korean Hooker’s perfume. But SPEEDY gets almost 40 miles per gallon on the highway. And with gas pushing $4.00 a gallon around here…it’s kind of fun to give the boys in Dubai the bird. So…as any Louie-Louie Generation guy will tell you…fun is what toys are all about. And SPEEDY is my kind of toy.