Mmm... Baby Dill’s
(i have no idea how this happened... but this was sitting as an unfinished blog for months and I just found it today 4/13/09 and figured I'd better publish it. It was originally written on 07/30/08... enjoy.)
Damn I hate having to admit it, but I freakin' love pickles now. I used to be the most anti-pickle person you'd ever meet. Even the smell of pickles used to make me queasy. But now... can't get enough of them! I bought a jar of Baby Dill's before I left the house the other day and just dove into them a minute ago.
Delicious!
Anywho. So I ended up getting deadheaded home from just outside of Dayton, OH after I delivered my load on Friday. I didn't actually make it home until Saturday due to some unfortunate circumstances at the consignee. But once I arrived I was thrilled to be out of the truck and not responsible for work for a few days.
Little did I know that work would come in the form of the search for a new personal vehicle.
The ol' man and I had been discussing lately the idea of trading in my Mazda Protege for a small pick-up truck. We are both landlords with rental properties that we are remodeling as we can afford to. So a pick-up truck would come in very handy for purchases of things like lumber, drywall, countertops and such.
Before I got home Saturday, my sweetie had been out and about for a few days looking at the local dealerships for a small Nissan or Toyota. He'd also spent a great deal of time calling dealerships within 4 hours drive of our home. He learned pretty quickly that we weren't going to find a small Nissan or Toyota in our price range, thanks to the rising gas prices. Turns out everyone and their brother are trading in larger trucks, vans and SUV's for smaller trucks, thus making the market very thin, competitive and expensive.
He actually found a full-size Chevrolet Silverado quad-cab pick-up truck with all the bells and whistles in our price range, but everything smaller and more basic than that was about 4 grand more. INSANITY!
Fortunately the night before I was to arrive home luck was changing. Once we agreed that we didn't have to have a Nissan or Toyota he started calling around looking for something... anything in a 4 cyl. 2 dr. 2-wheel drive. He located a Chevy Colorado in a town about an hour from our house and drove down to look at it after work that same day.
He called me many times while at the dealership, which included calls for information on filling out the application for credit and such. He worked a deal with them for a fair price and signed all the paperwork necessary for purchase and trade-in on the car. The only contingency was that we could shred the paperwork and forget the whole deal if when I got to see and drive the vehicle the next morning if I decided it was not something I wanted.
Which, as it turns out, was a great contingency plan. When my sweetums picked me up at the truck stop early the next morning I was happy to see that the truck was indeed in great shape and looked just perfect. After grabbing a bite to eat across the street it was time for me to give 'er a whirl. I got in, adjusted the seat and mirrors and put 'er in drive.
Things were going pretty well until I got up on the interstate and was shifting up through the gears to accelerate. We kept hearing some sort of clunking noise and couldn't really figure out what it was. But once I had 'er up to speed, the noise stopped. So we dismissed it and I kept on driving.
I exited the highway to head to the house and as I was shifting down through the gears the clunking noise started again. Baffled, I continued to the house. In the driveway the ol' man got out and had me press in the clutch a couple of times. The clunking sound was finally figured out.
The clutch was making the noise and that's not cool. So we headed right down to the dealership to give'r back, shred the paperwork and pick up my Mazda. It was a huge bummer for us both because we'd thought we'd found a good deal.
After retrieving my old car we headed back towards home. But along the way we were discussing the dire straits that was the small pick-up market and how we might just need to settle for something like a small 4 dr. car that we can throw a small hitch on and drag a small utility trailer when necessary until we can either afford something more or the prices bust on the small trucks.
And while we were discussing this, something told us to stop at a Chevy Dealership. We pulled in and were resigned to something along the lines of a used Chevy Cobalt car and when we were approached by a salesman, that's what we told him we were looking for. We gave him our price range and he went inside to see if he had anything to offer us.
A few moments passed while we sat on a bench in front of the dealership before the salesman emerged from the building. He informed us that he didn't have any small cars in our price range at the moment but that he did have a 2 dr. 4 cyl. automatic transmission Colorado pick-up that would be available the following week. He said it was in the body shop having some paint work done.
We were very very excited at this news. We'd given up on a small truck... and here they had one (or would soon). We asked if there was any way to get directions to the body shop doing the paint work so we could go take a look at it. He obliged and we were off.
Upon our arrival we found the truck fit our wishes. Someone had been the unfortunate victim of a pissed off ex-girl/boy friend keying the crap out of the truck, so it was in definite need of a paint job. But aside from cosmetics, it was just what we were looking for.
We called the salesman at the dealership from the body shop office and informed him that we really wanted the truck but that we would really like it if instead of a partial paint job, that it gets full body paint, bumper to bumper so that it would all match and look the same.
The salesman said he couldn't do it... so we thanked him, said good-bye and hung up the phone. We were talking with the body shop owner after the call and within 5 minutes the phone rang. He answered, said a few yes's and no's and gave a price quote of $250 then hung up.
It was the salesman at the dealership calling to give the go ahead for a full body paint job. We called him back and said we would be back shortly to start the paperwork.
We never even test drove the truck. We knew it was meant to be and had no qualms about it whatsoever.
We went to the dealership, filled out all the forms, drove our car home and had a great weekend
anticipating Monday, when the truck paint would be done.
Monday morning we headed back to the dealership, turned in the keys to the Mazda, settled up the last of the paperwork, got the keys to the truck and drove off into the sunset. The truck runs great, looks great and is OURS! Yippee!
Since then... I've had to come back to work and leave my sweetums and our new truck behind for a few weeks. I picked up a load in Huntington, WV at a place I pray I never have to go back to, and headed south towards Dublin, GA. I delivered my load this afternoon and am now just chillin' out till morning.
Damn I hate having to admit it, but I freakin' love pickles now. I used to be the most anti-pickle person you'd ever meet. Even the smell of pickles used to make me queasy. But now... can't get enough of them! I bought a jar of Baby Dill's before I left the house the other day and just dove into them a minute ago.
Delicious!
Anywho. So I ended up getting deadheaded home from just outside of Dayton, OH after I delivered my load on Friday. I didn't actually make it home until Saturday due to some unfortunate circumstances at the consignee. But once I arrived I was thrilled to be out of the truck and not responsible for work for a few days.
Little did I know that work would come in the form of the search for a new personal vehicle.
The ol' man and I had been discussing lately the idea of trading in my Mazda Protege for a small pick-up truck. We are both landlords with rental properties that we are remodeling as we can afford to. So a pick-up truck would come in very handy for purchases of things like lumber, drywall, countertops and such.
Before I got home Saturday, my sweetie had been out and about for a few days looking at the local dealerships for a small Nissan or Toyota. He'd also spent a great deal of time calling dealerships within 4 hours drive of our home. He learned pretty quickly that we weren't going to find a small Nissan or Toyota in our price range, thanks to the rising gas prices. Turns out everyone and their brother are trading in larger trucks, vans and SUV's for smaller trucks, thus making the market very thin, competitive and expensive.
He actually found a full-size Chevrolet Silverado quad-cab pick-up truck with all the bells and whistles in our price range, but everything smaller and more basic than that was about 4 grand more. INSANITY!
Fortunately the night before I was to arrive home luck was changing. Once we agreed that we didn't have to have a Nissan or Toyota he started calling around looking for something... anything in a 4 cyl. 2 dr. 2-wheel drive. He located a Chevy Colorado in a town about an hour from our house and drove down to look at it after work that same day.
He called me many times while at the dealership, which included calls for information on filling out the application for credit and such. He worked a deal with them for a fair price and signed all the paperwork necessary for purchase and trade-in on the car. The only contingency was that we could shred the paperwork and forget the whole deal if when I got to see and drive the vehicle the next morning if I decided it was not something I wanted.
Which, as it turns out, was a great contingency plan. When my sweetums picked me up at the truck stop early the next morning I was happy to see that the truck was indeed in great shape and looked just perfect. After grabbing a bite to eat across the street it was time for me to give 'er a whirl. I got in, adjusted the seat and mirrors and put 'er in drive.
Things were going pretty well until I got up on the interstate and was shifting up through the gears to accelerate. We kept hearing some sort of clunking noise and couldn't really figure out what it was. But once I had 'er up to speed, the noise stopped. So we dismissed it and I kept on driving.
I exited the highway to head to the house and as I was shifting down through the gears the clunking noise started again. Baffled, I continued to the house. In the driveway the ol' man got out and had me press in the clutch a couple of times. The clunking sound was finally figured out.
The clutch was making the noise and that's not cool. So we headed right down to the dealership to give'r back, shred the paperwork and pick up my Mazda. It was a huge bummer for us both because we'd thought we'd found a good deal.
After retrieving my old car we headed back towards home. But along the way we were discussing the dire straits that was the small pick-up market and how we might just need to settle for something like a small 4 dr. car that we can throw a small hitch on and drag a small utility trailer when necessary until we can either afford something more or the prices bust on the small trucks.
And while we were discussing this, something told us to stop at a Chevy Dealership. We pulled in and were resigned to something along the lines of a used Chevy Cobalt car and when we were approached by a salesman, that's what we told him we were looking for. We gave him our price range and he went inside to see if he had anything to offer us.
A few moments passed while we sat on a bench in front of the dealership before the salesman emerged from the building. He informed us that he didn't have any small cars in our price range at the moment but that he did have a 2 dr. 4 cyl. automatic transmission Colorado pick-up that would be available the following week. He said it was in the body shop having some paint work done.
We were very very excited at this news. We'd given up on a small truck... and here they had one (or would soon). We asked if there was any way to get directions to the body shop doing the paint work so we could go take a look at it. He obliged and we were off.
Upon our arrival we found the truck fit our wishes. Someone had been the unfortunate victim of a pissed off ex-girl/boy friend keying the crap out of the truck, so it was in definite need of a paint job. But aside from cosmetics, it was just what we were looking for.
We called the salesman at the dealership from the body shop office and informed him that we really wanted the truck but that we would really like it if instead of a partial paint job, that it gets full body paint, bumper to bumper so that it would all match and look the same.
The salesman said he couldn't do it... so we thanked him, said good-bye and hung up the phone. We were talking with the body shop owner after the call and within 5 minutes the phone rang. He answered, said a few yes's and no's and gave a price quote of $250 then hung up.
It was the salesman at the dealership calling to give the go ahead for a full body paint job. We called him back and said we would be back shortly to start the paperwork.
We never even test drove the truck. We knew it was meant to be and had no qualms about it whatsoever.
We went to the dealership, filled out all the forms, drove our car home and had a great weekend
anticipating Monday, when the truck paint would be done.
Monday morning we headed back to the dealership, turned in the keys to the Mazda, settled up the last of the paperwork, got the keys to the truck and drove off into the sunset. The truck runs great, looks great and is OURS! Yippee!
Since then... I've had to come back to work and leave my sweetums and our new truck behind for a few weeks. I picked up a load in Huntington, WV at a place I pray I never have to go back to, and headed south towards Dublin, GA. I delivered my load this afternoon and am now just chillin' out till morning.
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