"There's a Trick to it"!

"Labor Day weekend"! "Three days of doing what I want to do, and the first thing I'm going to do is trade in my old truck for a slightly better old truck"! This is the type of delusional thinking I fell victim of yesterday, as my wife and I exited early from our grandson Caleb's birthday party to do just that. Off we went, to Auto World, Hays Kansas' most reputable auto dealer, where absolutely everyone leaves satisfied, unless of course you happen to be me. I found the truck I was looking for, took it for a test drive, and really liked it. It even had the extended cab, which would come in handy for hauling around some of our young "tricycle motors". Yep! This truck would do just fine, for what I need, and for only forty-five hundred dollars. Now to get back to auto world and see what kind of trade-in allowance I'll get for my old truck. This, of course, is where the problems began. As Kristy and I pulled into the dealership, the salesman was sitting in the drivers seat of my old truck, which was still exactly where I had parked it. I walked up to the window. "It won't start" he said. "The clutch safety switch is just a little touchy", I said. "You have to really ram the clutch down hard on the floor". Salesman (pushing repeatedly on clutch): "I guess I don't have the right touch"! "It's just as well", I say. "You shouldn't drive it anyway, at least not before I give you the safety briefing"! "Safety briefing", he asks? "Well", I say, "there's lots of things you need to know about this old truck before you drive it". "Firstly, the brakes are "iffy", to say the least. You can make it stop, but if you hold the brake down for more than two seconds at a time, it will shoot all the brake fluid out of the master cylinder, so you basically want to stop by downshifting, which is yet another trick, as the synchronizers are out in the transmission, so it's best to shift without the clutch". "You also need to keep an eye on the temperature guage as the radiator has a rather large leak." "If it starts running hot, there's several jugs of water in the back, right beside the brake fluid, motor oil, and log chain." "If you decide to take it out on the highway, you can't drive at 55 mph. You can drive at 54 or 56mph, but not 55, or else the front end will start to shimmy and shake to the point of nearly throwing you out of the cab." "Forget it", he says, "I don't need to drive it to tell you what it's worth"! "How do you open the door", he asked, clearly wanting to get out. "That piece of aluminum storm door handle sticking out above the arm rest is the handle", I say, "the regular handle broke, so I just made this one, rather than buy a new one". "They're only about five bucks", he said. "This was free", I said. At this point, he and I were clearly becoming irritated at each other, as he walked around my truck, expressing his concerns over various dents, mis-matched paint, and rust. "Does at least the four wheel drive work", he asked. "Yes, but there's a trick to it", I say. "Forget it", he says, "I don't even want to know"! "It's got alot of character", I say. "Character is for real-estate", he says. From there, we go inside his office to see what the forty five hundred dollar pickup would cost me, after deducting the cost of my old truck trade. He wrote a figure down on a piece of paper, slid it across his desk, and never even looked up at me. I looked at the paper, asked my wife if she was ready to go, and we left. In my old truck, of course. The piece of paper he slid to me with the revised quote said "forty-six hundred dollars", forty-five hundred for the new truck, plus a one hundred dollar "waste disposal" fee. This really doesn't bother me, as I really kind of like my truck just the way it is. Sure, it's kind of moody, stubborn, bull-headed, and sometimes don't want to work, but then again, so am I. My wife, Kristy, knows how to keep me going, much in the same way that I do my old truck, and for both me and the truck, she'll readily admit that "there's a trick to it"!