what’s the rush?

okay, so i lied…

…i said i’d schedule a repeat here, than do a sixer on whether my life rocked or sucked. but instead you get a new bit today, and i have no idea what i’m gonna do for the sixer.

not for BAD reasons, like i don’t know if life “rocks” or “sucks”. in the sense that i was concerned about (whether or not grandma’s house would sell, all would fund okay, etc) life went smoother than could have been expected. but now becomes the reality of getting a car and sorting all THAT shit out. it’s weird – i love to shop, i love cars, but i don’t love to shop for cars. i tried to get into it via online crap lately and found myself struggling with it a bit. plus, i originally thought about the car thing, but also thought about some home improvements, and the more i weighed it all out i realized that the budget i had been shopping around for cars with would be ALL i had leaving zero for home improvements which, given how much time i spend here, didn’t work for me. so the car budget got lower, but the expectations didn’t, and that’s where the current stress level comes in.

amazing the shit i work myself up on, huh?

flash back ten years to spring of 2001. i was driving around in a 1991 chevy cavalier with a salvage title due to a bent frame due to my neighbor backing into me as i backed out of my driveway and 265,000 miles on the odometer. but memorial day weekend the temp gauge spiked, the car died, and the last time i saw it it was being loaded up on a flatbed truck to mexico. in 2001 i had no car and was using shane’s to get around so within a week of hustling i bought a 1998 chevy malibu, pretty much sight unseen, with 65,000 miles on it. drove it till spring of 2006 when water was discovered in the oil, and as i was driving it home from said discovery the engine locked up and there we were..with only 225,000 mile on it. so again, i had no car, and was getting around in a rental. needless to say the time factor kicked in again, this time for economic rather than friend inconvenience reasons, and i ended up scoring a 2001 camaro convertible (which i’m still driving) with 68,000 miles which now sits at 223,000 miles. there’s a slight oil leak, the check engine light is always on due to a higher flow catalytic converter and today for some reason it wouldn’t take more than six gallons of gas even though i damn well know it wasn’t that close to full when i went to fill up. but it still runs just fine. it still drives just fine. it needs a good bath and a brake job, but i can manage all that just fine.

so why did i drive down to SA to look at a car AND pitch a price to the guy last night on a whim?

i think it’s ’cause every time i’ve had to do this i’ve been in a pinch…and i want to do it now BEFORE i get in a pinch…but i need to watch to make sure i don’t pinch myself in other ways. this time, partially due to customer conversations about me car shopping (and similar chats with my boss) i’m looking at BMW’s and i’m kinda excited about it. for some reason all the ones i found in dallas i liked were black and all the ones in SA were gray…but when i looked online last night all but one of the ones i found in SA had sold, and the one left was the one that had really struck me ’cause it had the bigger motor, so i went down, looked at it, and test drove it.

i liked it.

plus, the (online) price is comparable to what i’m finding on cars with smaller motors and a bit fewer miles up in dallas, which is four times the distance from here. i don’t know…seems like a good deal, and all online reviews i read about this car (and even though i just googled make and model all reviews seem to be about the convertible in particular, which i didn’t even put in the search engine even though that’s what i’m looking at) rate it a “best buy” and “virtually maintenance free” and “easy for DIY mechanics” i still feel like i’m rushing in here, which for once i DON’T need to do. at least i don’t THINK i do.

it’s like the tv thing…there are worse problems to have, but this is the ridiculous shit i’m (literally) losing sleep over today.