Puffin' the magic dragon...

It's GONE! The $%^&* car is GONE! Oh, what a drama we've been living. I'll start from last weekend.

We've been trying to sell the Mercedes like mad. Brad put it online, we have signs in the windows, you name it. We had Ralph and Chris's lawn guy scouting out buyers for us. We even put it out on vacant lots but got calls from the police to get it out or they'll ticket us. This car has been like a really bad game of hot potato, where the hot potato sticks to your hands and won't leave. Or like a nightmare where someone throws you a grenade, but for the love your hands just won't release it when you try to throw it.... you get the idea. Since we got it in August-ish, we've put nearly $4000 into maintenance. Unreal. So now that it's maintained, we're trying to sell it... huh. That does sound like a buy high, sell low kind of mistake, but trust me, one never knows when another nail will go through a tire, or a transmission will need adjusting, or air conditioning will go out... etc.

So last weekend we showed it to a nice man and his wife down in Naples. They live in Santa Barbara, California, and are down here two weeks a year. In order to save money on car rental, they want to buy a Mercedes for $6000. At that rate it will take them approximately 10 years to even out, but that's not my problem. They liked the car, and voila, on Monday night, they handed us a check. We went for pizza and celebrated like we were little kids.

And then they took it to a mechanic on Tuesday. This mechanic was some friend-of-a-friend guy who told Buyer that the thing needed a rebuilt transmission and that the head gasket was leaking. So, like only another $4000 and it would be good as new. Brad was in my office when we got that call, and I think the air pressure of Fort Myers dropped a bit as we both gasped. As we processed it together, it just felt fishy to us. And a lot like a spiritual attack. This thing has been draining us financially, has been a source of stress and striving, and wouldn't it make sense for the Enemy to throw it back in our laps. Well, in a matter of minutes we got pretty smart with our heads together. We called our mechanic who is Mercedes-certified and asked his opinion. To our relief he said that it sounded fishy, that he knows those transmissions inside and out, and that they're bulletproof. He said he could look at it but not until Thursday. We called Buyer and told him that we were not willing to just give him his money back, that it needed to be looked at by a Mercedes certified mechanic and that would be Thursday morning. He said he wanted to take it to a certified mechanic as well to eliminate bias, which was fine.

So he called on Wednesday after taking it to the Mercedes dealership. Duh, dealerships just want your money. So of course they said the transmission needed servicing and the harness that connects wires in the front to wires in the back was bad, whatever that is. They also said something else that I can't remember. So last night we just prayed and begged God to let truth come out this morning at our mechanic.

This morning Brad went down there and was there by 8 a.m. and it all went beautifully. Our mechanic, who we don't really know or anything, but who knows our car, did a thorough check up of all the concerns. He said that he didn't know where it was coming from, but he thought there was some dishonesty in the air about all these problems. He explained the wiring harness thing (there's a crack in the sheathing- no big deal) and the head gasket thing (not a problem) and said the car was safe, reliable, and mechanically sound. The Buyer agreed to it, and reversed the stop payment on his check. And we are FREE of the ^&#$%^ thing. Sorry for the swearing. We really have named it The Damn Car. The Toyota is Maude, but the Mercedes is just damned.

And so we are finally free of the hot potato. We have our money in the bank, and we're about to go spend it tomorrow. We found a great Volkswagen Jetta at the Acura dealership and spent three hours Monday night talking with a guy there. Turns out Adam is a really great salesman but not the shmoozy kind-- a 26 year old car lover who also happens to sell cars. He also told us all about his Jewish mother and the guilt trips she sends him on. It was a very entertaining night. Anyway, we're going to go buy the car for Brad tomorrow. Congratulate him!

So why the title? Puffin' the magic dragon? Yeah, I mean it in the weed kind of way. On Sunday we took the Toyota Camry (we're also trying to sell Maude) to the Walmart to leave in the parking lot. Around 3 p.m. we got two phone calls from interested people. Walmart on the weekend is like Mexico City East, so it was hard to understand them, but we told them we'd be there in 10 minutes. Well, an hour later, we had been standing in the hot parking lot but no one showed up. While we were waiting, "Willie" walked over to ask about the car. Willie seemed interested in the car, and even promised the full price, but he couldn't pay until Friday. Somehow I doubt we'll be hearing from him tomorrow. He was a little toasted, as he was smoking a joint right there in the parking lot. Unbelievable.

Later we got a call from someone whose first language is Creole so it was tough to communicate, but we met him in the parking lot and showed him the car. He offered us a way low-ball amount of money so we couldn't do business. Plus he scared the bejeezus out of us just driving around the parking lot and I doubt he had a driver's license, so I wouldn't feel comfortable handing over the title anyway. Yikes.

So yay about the Mercedes. We're thanking God for that, big time! And we're still in the midst of trying to sell Maude. We'll keep you posted.