You Come and Go, You Come and Go

So here I sit during naptime, pondering the events of this past weekend. To say it was interesting would be an understatement. It all started the Saturday before last, when I went into Exchange New Car Sales' office to talk to Matt about the gorgeous 2009 Dodge Journey parked right beside the commissary. Michael and I have been talking about getting another car; it started out with an outrageous quote on a new Dodge Challenger, and then we moved on to the possibility of something new for me, like a crossover SUV. The Journey was my choice. I went in, got the price quote and paid the $100 down to "lock in the $2000 rebate for January," as Matt said. Michael would go in on Monday or Tuesday and talk about what kind of payments we'd be looking at. I'd given Michael my dollar limit for payments, and he relayed that to Matt, who promised he could make something work. The bank took an extra day to get back to Matt, but with his computer he could give us a rough estimate of what payments should be.

That's when I started feeling nervous.

When Michael called me on Tuesday to ask me if I was certain this was the car for me, I could hear a slight hesitation in his voice. I told him to go ahead ONLY if he was certain that we could afford it, and he was sure. So he started the paperwork and brought home his estimate sheet that Matt gave him. We both started looking at the numbers when I noticed the rebate we'd gotten. It wasn't the $2000 we were promised; it was less. There were new discounts we hadn't discussed, and the final price quote had inexplicably gone up. At that point, I asked Michael how much payments actually came out to be, and the number that came out of his mouth was considerably higher than what I'd told Matt was my limit per month.

That's when I started freaking out.

I got angry. I got upset. I got nervous that we'd just signed our lives away on something we'd deeply regret later. We talked for a little while about our options and decided not to get anything new for now, but to keep looking and maybe find something used. So Michael went to talk to Matt again to let him know we wouldn't be buying the car and to get our money back, only Matt started his spiel, telling Michael to "talk to the wife," that "we can work out something" and "really think about what you love about this car." Basically, he didn't want to give us the money back right away, because the terms and conditions about backing out of the deal require doing so within 3 days of signing. Since the final paperwork was never actually signed, we thought we'd have no problem getting that $100 back. Michael told Matt several times that I didn't want to buy the car, and that we'd already made the decision, but Matt was hearing none of it.

That's when the s**t hit the fan.

Friday of this past weekend was Day 3 and the last day to back out of the deal. Since Michael had a 4-day weekend, he went to Post solely to get the money back, with a possible trip over to JAG if need be. He walked into the office, calmly told Matt that we were not buying the car, and Matt once again started his speech. Michael interrupted him, basically threatening to record the conversation per his lawyer's advice (ps - we don't have a lawyer) and head over to JAG to report the sales office for sneaky tactics in order to sell cars. Matt and the sales guy sitting at the desk next to him just sat there, eyes wide and unblinking, jaws on the floor.

That's when we got our money back.

In other news, Michael, Jericho and I were having lunch at Burger King on Monday afternoon. Since BK had recently run out of medium-sized cups, we were both drinking out of bucket-size cups with the pull-off tabs for the contest that's currently running there. Michael is obsessed with these pull-off tabs, so he was excited when he got one on his fries AND his cup! I pulled mine off and won a cheeseburger. I asked Michael what he won, so he held it up for me to see.

I nearly fainted.



Things like this never happen to us!

According to the rules, the home theater system can't be shipped to a PO Box, even though it's an AAFES contest. Go figure. So with a quick trip to the library with the Big Giant Stroller and contest rules in hand, we looked online to find out how to go about getting it over to us. It looks like we've got 2 options: A) ship it to a "fake" address (yes, it's legal, but I won't get into detail) and use that to get it here, or B) ship it to a kind, wonderful, loving relative to receive the boxes for us and in turn, send it on over to us. We also have to figure out what to do with the flat-screen we just bought not even 2 months ago.

That's when I started believing in karma.