Why People Hate Car Salesmen

You know, I enjoyed selling cars. I really did. My boss was a maniac, but I adored him. My customers were the best folks in the world. And there was never a dull moment. The hours stunk, the stress was high, the pace was gruelling, and I wouldn't want to try to pull it off with children who need me at home. If, however, I was a single male, I would still be selling cars and having a blast doing it.

I didn't sacrifice my moral standards to make a sale, either. After a while, people even stopped making me stand by the Amway/Quikstar folks at social functions and welcomed me back among the living. But I do understand why, as a general rule, car salesmen carry the stigma of a leper in polite society:

They just have to push those envelopes. Just have to. The sales and management staff are the mental equivalent of a showroom full of four year olds who reach for the cookie jar not five seconds after you told them "no". They know better. You've told them better. But they just. have. to. try.

And that, honestly, pisses people off.

Zorak is in Georgia right now, yes, at nine o'clock at night, seething pretty heavily.

He's been in the market for a pick up that would work well as a commuter, and also for hauling materials for the house. He's been looking for over a year. We have the cash, but wanted to finance it to help build our credit and keep assets fluid for the remodel of a home. (We've always known we'd have to remodel whatever we bought, so we just counted on it.)

Today he found one. He researched the vehicle. He called the dealership. He asked all the right questions, including the phrase "out the door". They couldn't finance the vehicle (older truck, low price), so he arranged his own financing in a matter of minutes, called the dealership back to let them know he's on his way (198 mi. one-way drive), picked up the cashier's check and headed out.

Of course, once he got there, took it for a drive, ascertained that there's not a frightening amount of Bondo on the thing, etc. He said he'd take it... and they broke out the Alpine Air, the charge for tires, doc fees, etc. It came in much higher than the out-the-door price he'd been quoted.

Yes, I'm sure they thought he'd be an "easy lay", as the term goes for pushover customers. He's very nice, and does not come across as confrontational. But come ON, people. If you want someone to bring the money to pay for your little stunts, ya might wanna let them in on it to begin with. Personally, I'd have ridden them a bit on the sales price, to begin with, and then we'd have had a throw-down over the details later. But Zorak is very upfront, very honest, and right now, he's very pissed. He is tired, he is cold, and he would much rather get back on the road to come home before midnight than sit there in studville (aka the showroom) and haggle like he's buying a blanket in Mexico.

Out. The. Door. That means, literally translated, "What, precisely, are you going to take from me, down to the last penny, so that I can walk out the door with a vehicle?" *sigh*

Poor guy just wants a pickup.

I just want my husband home, safe and sound.

So then he could kiss the babies, too...
Dy

****Update: He did lay it on the table and tell them to either make it work or give him the check back. He's driving home in the pickup, but had to go to Wal-Mart to buy a ramp because they're mad and wouldn't help him load the bike into the bed of the truck. I'm so glad he didn't have to use those insulated coveralls tonight!****

I wanna be a deeenntist!

We took the boys to the dentist today. It's been a long time coming, and it was... well, dentally speaking, it was far worse than I'd anticipated. However, the experience itself was wonderful from beginning to end. The boys were so excited to meet their dentist, and they bounded ahead of us into the office to announce their arrival. (I did put in a lot of overtime working them up to that, too, but it was well worth the effort.) The staff was phenomenal. Well, James' dental hygienist was phenomenal. John's was above average for your normal dental cleaning experience, but paled in comparison to the one James had. No complaints all around, though, as it was far, far, far and away better than any experience I ever had as a child in a dentist's office! (We did request the really nice lady for the next visit, though. *grin*) Yay. One more wonderful resource secured, and one less thing to worry about. That feels really good.

I didn't blog about our Normal Day because it was... well, pretty Normal. We wandered around a bit. We read a stack of books in bed, then headed off to the table to have snacks and make sock puppets and cards. We ate. A lot. We caught up on laundry, read and talked some more.

Part of the deal was that there were to be no overalls that day. The older two and I wore sweats and loved it. Smidge kept hauling his overalls from the closet and trying to get into them. Then he'd stand at the door and cry, "House!" Hmmm. We snuggled in informal shifts and spent a lot of time feeling like we ought to be doing something over at the house. The boys commented on it. I agreed. When Zorak came home from work, however, he wanted to run to the house for "a couple of hours" (alone), but I think the choking noise emanating from my throat hinted to him that it would probably be better if he'd take bath duty and let me find a dark corner to hide in for a bit. It was a good day, but boy, oh boy, it was draining. I think I need a few hours of q-u-i-e-t. That might help.

After the dentist appointments this morning, Zorak headed back to work (bless him for helping me herd the kittens at the doctor's!) and the boys and I headed to Costco. We needed food, in a bad way. One simply cannot go two weeks straight in a household of five without ever setting foot in a market, and expect there to be food in the house at the end of those two weeks. That is the official result of our experiment, anyway. So, we splurged. We had a great time. We got smoothies on the way out and laughed and giggled. We do very well when we're on-the-go, I've noticed. Anyone else do that? It'll be nice when we do just as well on-the-couch, though.

And this evening, we loaded everyone up and worked on the house for a few hours. Zorak finished removing the bathroom wall (we are moving it over 12"), and I hung out in the living room with Spartacus doing subfloor duty. The house no longer smells!! A great deal of the persistent odor that's refused thus far to subside seems to have been the cat urine/bong water soak the previous owners had put into the carpets. It's like Carpet Fresh for the socially deranged! The house is also harboring a lower relative humidity than it's probably had in at least a decade: the balcony door is splitting! We're keeping it to use as our humidity gauge. Now we just need some enigmatic liquidy substance we could use as a barometer and we're set.

The Dumpster Guy is bringing us a construction dumpster tomorrow. We can get the toilet out of the front yard now! WooHoo! (The neighbors were starting to get a little worried, I'm sure.) Tomorrow Zorak will head down to do his rough plumbing calculations greek greek greek mostly greek to me. The boys and I will head to church for Pioneer Club. The decision to keep the boys in PC while all this is going on has been a Very Good Decision, and while it's not-so-great to lose an evening of work, it's worth far more for the boys to have that positive consistency each week. Good stuff.

Pickles and Ice Cream, anyone? Poor (wonderful) Zorak is at Wal-Mart as I type, trying desperately to find a body pillow for me (and it sounds like tonight's excursion will not end with a pillow, either - who knew body pillows were considered "seasonal"???). I'm going to hit the hay, anyway, and get some shut-eye. If I go now, I might get an extra pillow from his side of the bed without much of a struggle! :-)

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Happy Suit

Do you have a favorite outfit or shirt? One that makes you feel your best, your most adorable, most approachable -- your Happy Suit? I had one, years ago, that made me feel that way. It was a sweatshirt/jeans outfit that I simply adored. The sweatshirt was grey and teal. It had a soft caressing texture on the inside, and the jeans were slightly baggy (but in a comfy, darnit-this-is-cute sort of way). When I wore that outfit, I felt absolutely magazine-model-casual-attire stunning.

Then I'd see a picture of me in that outfit. The tangible results were shockingly different than the rose-colored vision I carried around. It was, in a word, horrid. The sweatshirt neckline does nothing for my head (or sweatshirts in general, for my body), and the jeans had that "yeah, I've lost about eighty pounds, but don't want to buy new clothes until I know the weight's going to stay off" hang to them. No matter how nicely the hair/makeup/nails were done, this outfit just screamed, "I do not care what happens to me!" No wonder Zorak never beamed lustily at me when I donned my Happy Suit. It probably wasn't such a Happy Thing for him to have to be seen in public with me in it, and he showed no remorse when the sweatshirt received it's culling from the herd.

Well, I've found a new Happy Suit. And, I fear, it probably does about as much for me as that last one did, but darnit, I just don't have to be photographed when I've got it on. But I do plan to live in it until Spring, just because. It's soft. It's fuzzy. It's roomy. And it's probably ugly, too, but that's okay. I got some great jeans to go with it...

The Remodel, Day 6

Tomorrow, we have "Normal Day". The boys are more excited about that than they were about their own birthdays. Zorak and I are, too.

Today was a short day, filled with unexpected surprises. Some good, some wretched. First, though, Carolyn, good question! The shower is actually still in there. We haven't the energy or the heart to tackle it yet. From what we can best figure, though, the shower is held in place by the lathe that squeezed through to the studs and insulation on the back. That also seems to be quite the hoppin' joint for the pill bug colonies, so (and we are completely making this up) we're guessing they found the most secure spot in the walls to hang out? Plus, there's plenty of archaeological, erm, evidence to suggest that other "cultures" have camped there before, as well. It's just gross. I'm thinking we should fill that room with cement and turn our back deck into a master bath!

Today was a Big Day for our marriage: Zorak topped his all-time Most Romantic Gift Ever, knocking my arm guard from its ten-year standing in First Place, by presenting me with a Spartacus Bar for pulling up the subfloor. (I've provided a link because a simple Google search will melt your eyeballs and then you'd never find my beloved wrecking bar. *blush*) For me, this is terribly romantic because it means he knows me well (ie. I hated not being able to get that floor up and offering to do it for me would have made me feel even more useless), he loves me to pieces (ie. but would rather have me all in one actual piece), and he is a wonderful provider and protector (ie. now my knees, arms, back, and hands don't hurt!) What could be more romantic than one gift that says all that?

So with Mighty Spartacus at hand, I was able to finish pulling up the truly horrible hallway subflooring (and all eight thousand nails holding it down) in a short day's work. The hallway looks better, and I'm ready to tackle the living room/kitchen space now!

Fortunately, that space is now ready to be tackled. The kitchen wall is non-existent, the ceiling is prepped for repairs, the linoleum is up, the carpet is up, and the layout is ready to make a dry run with panel-templates. (Might as well recycle the panels before we get rid of them, right?) The entire space has a completely different feel to it, and the house is beginning to show the promise of its end design. It still smells, but even that seems to be fading (or we're getting used to it, which is a deeply disturbing concept...)

The living space subfloor would have been done today, but for an incident that happened late this afternoon, which left us all shaken enough that we called it an early day and came home. I'll blog about it later, but not tonight. Everyone is fine, and we're all safe and healthy, not to worry. And, it was very nice to come home, bathe all three boys, enjoy dinner and a movie, and relax for a bit as a family.

We should be laying subfloor on Friday and ordering cabinets over the weekend! This week will be the plumbing and wiring week. I probably won't blog much of that unless Zorak spells it out in layman's terms for me. If someone out there is just painfully curious about the plumbing and wiring process, well, this is probably the wrong place to go for information. Cute boys? I can fix ya up. Wiring diagrams? Shyah, I still get excited when I can get my sketches to look remotely like what I'm talking about.

During quiet time tomorrow I need to call the County Guy, A Chimney Guy, A Glass Guy and the Dumpster Guy. Possibly the Rock Guy. I hope they answer their phones during nap time! Zorak has a convoluted list of his own to pursue. And the boys have cookies to bake. It should be a wonderful, exciting week.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

The Remodel, Day 5

I have no idea what we did today, but Zorak assures me we made good progress.

The highlight of the day was when Zorak kicked through the wall adjoining the bathroom to the front bedroom. It was down to sheet rock when he got this gleam in his eye. He asked if I thought it would traumatize the boys too much if he jumped through the wall. Nah. We've done worse to them.

So we called them in to "come watch this wall, boys!" They stood by the back closet with me, watching the wall, when suddenly the drywall (long story, long, weird story about drywall even being in that room) flew from the wall and there was Daddy!! At first, Smidge didn't know what to think, but when he saw that the boys were awed and Mommy was laughing and clapping, he laughed. He still pointed to the wall and said, "Hey! HEY!" but he thought it was neat. If weird. James and John thought it was "sooooo cool!" They went on for quite a while about how Daddy is just like a Super Hero, and wow, they didn't know he was so strong! And of course, could they try it, too? SURE! Give it a shot! So three little boys went traipsing around the corner to give it the ol' heave-ho. Zorak lent a little hand and they managed to push down another piece of drywall, then bounded off feeling pretty darned impressive, if they did say so, themselves.

On the rest of it, we gutted The War Room (the front bedroom, which we plan to use as a base of operations, AKA "War Room", for the tactical planning aspect of the project) - ripped out the adjacent to the bathrooms wall, lost about an hour saying, "Ewwwww!" All of the plumbing aside from the kitchen has been removed, and we got a leg up on the subfloor in the hallway.

We determined that the interior walls that we want to move or remove are not attached to more than one ceiling joist (happy day!) Zorak removed what can only be described as a plethora of stuff from the Yucky Room in the basement and identified THE source of THE water in the basement (more happiness). He also discovered that our bath, the master bath, has no. floor. under. the shower. More "ewww" followed that discovery.

Just a tip for would-be DIY'ers. MDF (medium-density fiberboard) is not a good underlayment. It will soak up water like the wood-based sponge that it is. Wet MDF has the consistency of used coffee grounds. This is disgusting. While MDF is a wonderful product for Christopher Lowell Fans and decoupage projects, it makes a poor choice for underlayment. Plastic sheeting under the MDF will not, in fact, make it waterproof. And nailing the stuff down every two inches will not do the trick, either. Just. Don't. Do. That.

Where the subfloor hadn't reverted back to its free-particle state, the two-inch nailing pattern made it harder to get up than it would be to lift Michael Clark Duncan using a spatula. Lovely. Tonight, for the first time since we've begun this project, I am really sore.

There was more - slingshots, spiders, gravel, and BBQ. It was another good day, and now that Zorak has helped me list it all out, it wasn't too bad on the productivity scale, either. The boys and I are going to have a Normal Day on Monday - we're going to snack on the couch and read books all day in our sweats. We're all looking forward to that.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

The Remodel, Day 4

Friday was an 11 hour day working on the house. When we came home, I collapsed on the couch, too tired to think in complete sentences. That's not a complaint. It's a good feeling to know that you have worked your hardest and put your all into the day. But the end result of putting your all into something is that there's not much left, well, not any left, when you're done. The end benefit (or one of them) is that there is something you have created or accomplished when you are done, as well. That's where the feeling gets good.

Yesterday the bookshelves came off, and the kitchen wall is now see-through. I was giddy with anticipation as the first bit of wall came down and the sunlight streamed through into the living room. I made all manner of stoopid noises and bounced around singing, then bolted down the hallway to see if Zorak wanted, "to see something sexy". Without looking up, he said, "What, did you stab yourself with the wrecking bar again?" Um, no (although that is finally starting to heal, thanks)... It's beautiful! (The kitchen/living room combo, not the gangrenous looking bruise on my thigh.)

The hall bath is now down to only studs and prepped for plumbing. (PLUMBING! YEEHAW!). We can see the first two attempts someone made at putting in a toilet, and of course the final plumbing where the toilet eventually landed. The subfloor was so rotted that it looked like coffee grounds and had to be scooped up with a dustpan. That is a lot of urine and bathwater, folks. However, I think the field trip down the hallway to see what happens when little boys splash water out of the tub may have had an impact: the boys took their baths last night and got nary a drop out of the tub. *hee hee*

The carpet and padding in the hallway are up, insulation is out of the main living/eating spaces, and the place is looking incredible! I did have a bit of an "Oh. Dear. Me." moment when I pulled one of the threshold strips up on the taupe living room/hallway carpet, only to discover it's not actually taupe. It's original color is platinum white. Yeah. That's just wrong!

Oh, and the wall where *something* went horribly wrong? BONANZA!! I realized, while giving it more of my evil eye, that - hey - right there, where it's all framed in and nasty and coming apart? That's going to be a BAY WINDOW when we're done! I don't have to care about it anymore, because somebody ELSE gets to rip that out for me and put in a window. All I have to do is stand behind him with a six-pack and some fresh brisket and bribe him to do it well. HOT DAMN! That's a great feeling!

We lunched at Barnhill's Fry-For-All, where the boys with their overalls and bantering and voracious appetites attracted every senior couple in the place to our table to talk and visit and oogle them. The older two boys just beamed. Smidge hammed it up (that's what you do when you're two and have decided not to glare at people and say "no" all the time - two is actually a very fun age). The grandparently types shared their stories of children, grandchildren and greatgrandchildren, and it was just lovely. When we left, the boys got to the door, turned to say good-bye and the entire section we'd been sitting in waved and shouted back. (In a good way, not in a "wow, they're finally leaving" way.)

John and Smidge crashed for a long summer afternoon nap in the car, which left James free to roam and discover. Suddenly I heard a rickety, metal-on-rock clanging sound and from outside came this wee voice shouting, "WOOOOHOOOOOO!" I poked my head out the window, and there was James, legs jutting out to the sides, one arm flailing in the air, riding his Little Red Wagon DOWN THE HILL. At this point, my mother tried to channel through me and force me to go stop him before he gets hurt. Thankfully, I sent her back and kept my mouth shut. Sure, he may hurt himself. Sure, that scared the pants off me. But that little boy, laughing and whooping it up, dragging his wagon from hill to hill to find just the right one for riding down, was a HUGE part of why we bought this place. My little man, who can be so very serious about everything, became a Little Boy in all it's danger-infused, creative glory. So I did what any mother would do when faced with this scene: I grabbed Zorak and we sat on the porch, side by side, watching him and basking in the warmth of knowing we've bought the right place. They can grow up here. They can explore here. There are adventures waiting to happen, and the room to go find them. This place is so very perfect for us.

And today looks like another busy day, so I'd better go round everyone up and head out there. Have a great Saturday!

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

It Doesn't Take Long

It doesn't take long to say, "You know what? Mommy and I really enjoy you." But the results will last a very long time, indeed.

It doesn't take much longer to let a little one "help out" by carrying or loading or holding tools than it does to do it yourself. But that very little bit of extra time, or patience, or effort that it takes from you yields a very large benefit for the Little Helper.

It doesn't take a noticeably longer time to unload the car if you haul a not-really-sleeping child into bed, even if he could get up and walk. But the smile and giggle from his bed once he's safely tucked in and kissed will keep you warm all night.

It's so easy to fall into the trap of looking for the Big Changes, the Big Moves, the Big of the Big to really show the children that we love them, cherish them, and are there for them. But really, all we have to do is love them, cherish them, and be there for them. It really doesn't take long to make a Big Impact on a Little Heart.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Swear, swear, swear

The one time - ONE time - in over a year, that I don't copy/save my post before posting, and I get an error. Grrrr.

Will just have to try again tomorrow. I'm too tired, and there's a pecan log around here somewhere calling to me...

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

HA!

My sidebar is SO getting updated!!! WOOHOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Today was pretty much a wash. Did you know that if you don't have a local bank branch, your honey has hidden the checkbook and he has your debit card in his wallet, you cannot do diddly squat for errands? Yup. Well, not where I needed to go today. So, we drove around just long enough to realize we wouldn't be getting anything done and came home.

Zorak wanted to go work on the house after he got off work, but the boys had other plans that squashed my much-needed nap plan, so we didn't go after all. It's ok. Zorak and I will throw on a pot o' coffee when the boys are down and come up with a rockin' game plan for tomorrow afternoon. (AND I have my debit card back, so I can get some cash and go make connections, transfers, and purchases as needed in the morning.)

What saved the day, though, was the arrival of our new, shiny, dust-free DSL MODEM!!! Woohoo! I have no idea what speed I'm flying, but I feel like Dennis Quaid in Innerspace right now. It's a hoot! I can add all the other great links that I love to visit, because now I can visit them regularly. Zorak and I could *both* use the computer in one evening without taking eight hours to do it! This is bliss. Sweet, wonderful bliss.

On the Forever Home front, we think we've come up with a way to handle the Wall That Went Horribly Wrong. It's going to take some figuring out to find the best way to apply it, but that's the fun part: coffee, mechanical pencils, scrap paper and brainstorming late into the night. These are a few of my favorite things!!!

OK, so I'm off to go play. Thank you, all for your sweet wishes for our little one. We'll keep y'all updated. In the meantime,

Kiss those babies!
~Dy