Giddy-up, Horsie! Another Answer to Prayer!

We found and bought a car tonight for Sarah's use. This was truly a God thing. After coming home from Sarah's One-Stop at HCC, I checked Craig's List (MD, northern VA, and DC) and found nothing worthwhile in the way of a car to call about. Then I checked email. My husband was sending me an email AS I WAS WRITING to him (so romantic, isn't it? I'll takes it howevers I can gets it.) . It was a link to Craig's List in Delaware. Funny, I hadn't thought about searching there. I tend to think "3 hours to Delaware" because of the beach. This was 50 minutes.

The link was for a 1995 white Lexus with high miles in good shape for just $3300. That's some 1400-1500 under KBB value! The guy needed to sell in order to have all the cash he wanted for settlement on a house this Friday. Come to find out he and his wife are believers and he leads worship and has a recording studio (having recorded the likes of Jacqui Velasquez (sp?) and other Christian artists. His personality and infectious laugh reminded me of our pastor Arie.

So I tell him we're very interested and I'll bring the money IF and only if the 4:00 person he was showing it to didn't buy it. We've had 2 disappointments like that recently. He tells me everything right and wrong with the car, and the rights far outweigh the wrongs. I ran the list by Paul on the phone, and --wonder of wonders--he says, "go up there. Get it if you like it and if you trust the people."

You must understand. This is not the husband I married 20 years ago. He used to research a pair of running shoes for weeks before buying one 50 miles away to save five bucks. Then he'd have buyer's remorse if he saw the same pair advertised the next day for six bucks less.
Today he sends me a link from work and tells me to go up to Delaware within the hour to buy a car. Not with him. Without him! This is so not Paul, but you know what? It made me feel really good that he trusted me with that amount of money and car sense. Thanks, honey (if you read this!). Of course on the way up there he calls with his myriad other concerns. "Back out of his driveway and check for oil spots. If you're not sure what the fluid is, taste it." (He's telling Sarah this on the cell phone while I drive.) I hear her say, "I'm not gonna TASTE it!" I say, "Tell dad if you die you'll know it wasn't just condensation."

We get lost about five miles from the guy's house, thanks to mapquest not knowing there's a detour in Newark. Anyway, we finally arrive as Paul dictates new turn-by-turn directions.
The guy is waiting with a big smile. The car is nice. Not too nice to be uppity, but not too banged up to make us feel we wasted a lot of gas. Just right.

However, there is one little thing the guy forgot to mention on the phone or in the ad. It's little for a tall person, but not for shorty me. The problem is that the driver's seat motor will adjust the seat in every direction except forward. Yeh. Translated: I can't reach the pedal! Sarah is secretly loving this defect, I'm sure of it. So I couldn't test drive it, and she got to.

It's got 192K miles, but these cars are workhorses. And speaking of horses, you should have been on the test drive with us. I have never had to tell Sarah so many times in two miles to slow down. I felt the same mix of wonderful delight and sheer terror that I felt on the bare back of a galloping horse on a Kansas dirt path when I was nine.

I loved the ride.

I told the guy we'd buy it if my hubby approved of the seat defect. Paul said it was okay. It's a great car otherwise. A few rips in the leather, stains on the carpet, but hey! It's 12 years old and is for getting a kid back and forth safely to college without going into debt for transportation! I did ask the guy (I guess I should call him Sean since that is his name) if he'd knock a hundred bucks off for the seat problem, but he said he's at his lowest. I handed him the check, accepted the title and key, and blessed him and his new wife on their new home and marriage and wished him well at settlement. He was grinning from east to west.

We go back tomorrow after getting tags from the MVA. (He thought I said "NBA" and wondered what on earth???)

It's the quickest, most expensive transaction I've ever made all by myself and I'm happy about it. I just hope I've done right by my trusting mate.

Anyone wanna ride in the old new car? I told Sarah she should name it after a Preakness winner, it's so fast and smooth. Got any suggestions???? (She wants a girly name since it's "her" car. I put "her" in quotes because it is OUR car with her having liberal access.) Now the only prayer requests are: make sure MVA is cool with everything and that Sarah stays out of traffic court.