Has it come to this, Bath And Body Works?

Look, I know you ladies out there enjoy having the smelly soaps around the house, and as a totally awesome dude, I like for my ladies to smell nice.

Just not like a Fresh Market Apple.

I know that there's not a lot of guys that read my blog, but let me put this question out there to you:

Remember when you were a teenager and your hormones were raging and you were lying there in the bed with your eyes closed imagining your pillow was Katie Jean Kliegenhoffer without her headgear for her braces? Yeah, me too. 

Do you remember imagining that perfect kiss... you're sitting there at the top of the ferris wheel, which has, as luck would have it, stopped with both of you at the top.

Remember looking into her beautiful eyes and smelling...

COCONUT LIME 
VERBENA

For some reason, the love of my life and the mother of my children sees fit to stock up on THE WORST smelling soaps from B&BW and keeps them out at every sink we have. I actually had to ask her to buy some non-smelling anti-bacterial soaps just so I wouldn't smell like...

DANCING WATERS

WHAT THE !@#$% DOES A DANCING WATER SMELL LIKE? 

I am being completely honest here when I tell you that even the good-smelling soaps are offensive to my olfactory facilities.

But what creeps me out, and I mean REALLY, REALLY creeps me the *bleep* out is when we go to my in-laws house. In the guest bathroom, my mother-in-law keeps a bottle of this lotion:

I know you can read what this says

No son-in-law wants to imagine his wife's mother with a bottle of anything named remotely near this. I realize you might think this is tame, but I'm pretty sure this was the name of a poorly-dubbed video that me and bunch of my fraternity brothers would watch in slow motion in college. 

No, this has nothing to do with soap, but it makes me laugh.

I just wonder what goes through my wife's head when she's shopping and thinks... Oh, I'd love to smell like:

• Exotic Rainforest
• Peach Bellini
• Sea Island Cotton (who the hell wants to smell like cotton?)
• Moonlight Path (where is this path, exactly?)
• Kitchen Lemon (really? you want to smell like dish soap?)
• Eucalyptus Mint (this just reeks [literally] of a panda exhibit disaster)

Now, if you'll excuse me, I just ate some Cheetos and I have to go wash up and smell like a Vanilla Berry Sorbet.

Application for Bro-ployment

Buddy. Pal. Homeboy. Friend. The Brits favor the word "mate".

It's strange how it's harder to find friends -- real friends -- when you get older. You get picky and set in your ways. You end up wanting them to conform to your ways and you don't really see it as an option to compromise. Obviously, this isn't the right thing to do.

However, it is what *I* am going to do, because I'm picky and set in my ways.

I pondered for a while on different ways to meet people who share my loves, hobbies, ideologies and general nerdity. But... how to accomplish this?

I could try a dating site, but a dude lookin' for a dude might give the wrong impression.

I could go to a local comic book or sci-fi convention, but there'd be a lot of "-tion": desperation and perspiration. I can deal with the former, but the latter is always accompanied with a lack of deodorant.
Cloning is not really a possibility at the moment. Even if it was, it'd be WAY too expensive. Oh, but don't think I haven't pondered the hell out of it.

No, what I need is for them to come to me. <makes the stroking motion on my chin while looking up and to the right with a cocked eyebrow>  I need something like a job posting, but for a buddy. 

So, I came up with one. And, before you continue, understand that I know it's going to offend some of you. It doesn't mean I don't like you. Well, it might mean that -- let's not discount it completely. However, the more you agree with me, the better things will be.

Part 1: Friend Requirements

Must have:

• Moderate understanding of superheroes. Must know all major heroes and their secret identities. Nobody gives a rat's ass about the third-tier losers.
• Basic understanding of sci-fi with heavy, heavy emphasis on Star Wars. I'm not asking that you know what attack pattern the snowspeeders flew at the beginning of Empire, but it'd help.
• You must have the ability to carry on an intelligent conversation. We're not going to hang out and talk about your fungus.
• An understanding that the most important word in the English language is: "Why", used in the interrogative form.
• Knowledge of two (minimum) funny web sites.  If either or both of the web sites were sent to you in an email from your mother, wife, girlfriend, or grandmother, then they aren't funny. xkcd.com and fark.com preferred. 
• Familiarity with pop culture.
• A desire to defend, to the death if necessary, the belief that:
• Barbecue is a noun that refers to the meat in question, and not the apparatus used to cook it. It is never used as a verb
• Barbecue is made from pork and only pork.  
• The ability to "get it". If you don't "get it', then all of the above requirements are useless -- helpful, but useless.

Must not:

• Own any paraphernalia of a college or professional sports team. Including, but not limited to: stickers, magnets, clothes, logos, wallpaper, underwear, license plates, tattoos, or pets used as mascots.
• Have a desire to be a manager.
• Have a job in any form of sales. If you want to be a sales manager, I will attack on sight.
• Enjoy Fox News.
• Talk about politics or religion. This doesn't mean I'm not political or religious -- I just don't want to talk about either.
• Brag about your state. I'm looking at you, Texans and New Yorkers and to a lesser extent, Californians.
• Smoke, either casually or seriously. If you do smoke, it better be because you are literally on fire.

Part 2: Personality Profile

Questions:

1. You are watching the Winter Olympics. It's the women's giant slalom. The athlete is from Finland. Halfway down the course, she launches from a bump and, in the air, loses control and begins flailing wildly before crashing into the ground, and ultimately, into the barrier. She's fine, but is now firmly in last place. How do you react?
1. (gasping) "Oh... my... God...  is... is she okay?"
2. "This is a chance for the Americans to medal!"
3. (pained breathing from laughing so hard)
2. Are you gay?
1. A little
2. My boyfriend thinks so
3. I make RuPaul look like Ned Flanders
4. Hell no.
5. Nope, but to each his own.
3. What is the best kind of beer?
1. Lazy Magnolia's Southern Pecan
2. New Belgium's Fat Tire
3. Both of the above
4. I'll drink most anything as long as it's not made by Budweiser, Miller, Coors, Corona, Pabst or Heineken
4. What is the best way to prepare bananas?
1. Frozen, then dipped in chocolate
2. Bananas Foster
3. Split, with three scoops of ice cream
4. Trick question. Bananas are an abomination from God. It's no coincidence that both poop and bananas are the same shape.
5. At the end of The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King, when Aragorn turns to the hobbits and says "My friends. You bow to *no* one." You cried like a baby.
1. True
2. False
3. Didn't see those stupid midget movies.
6. The Princess Bride is:
1. Prince William's wife, Katherine
2. A movie I watched when I was sick because there was nothing else on.
3. Hands-down, the best movie movie ever made. 
7. I know something you do not know.
1. I am not left-handed.
2. I am Spartacus
3. I am the eggman. Whoo! I am the eggman. Whoo! I am the Walrus. Ku-ku-ka-chu.
8. ROUSs:
1. Are mortgage-backed securities
2. Are secret societies in Europe, dedicated to stopping left-handers
3. Rodents of unusual size? I don't believe they exist. AAARRGH!
9. Finish this lyric: I strip away the old debris, that hides a shining car...
1. A brilliant red Barchetta from a better, vanished time
2. Motor down the boulevard, feeling like a star
3. Baby you're much too fast, yes you are.
10. Best celebrity chef:
1. Guy Fieri
2. Alton Brown
3. Rachel Ray
4. Sandra Lee
11. Mob, DPS, Raid, Tank, and Loot are:
1. Words that describe a typical post-NBA championship "celebration".
2. Terms from World Of Warcraft, possibly the greatest game ever invented.
3. Names of the children of gangsta rappers.

Answers:

1. C. Your wife will look at you in disgust, but this isn't about her, is it? Welcome to the inner circle.
2. E. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
3. A, B, C, and D are all correct. We would have also accepted a write-in answer of "More Southern Pecan"
4. D. Before you eat a banana in my vicinity, notify your next of kin.
5. A. You shut your stupid face. You have no soul.
6. C. Australia is entirely peopled with criminals.
7. A. I am not left-handed either.
8. C. The flame spurts and the lightning sand don't exist either.
9. A. Bonus points for knowing where the story behind the song came from.
10. B. It was sort of a trick question. The other three aren't real chefs.
11. B. Hunters for the win.

Please include 3 references and a cover sheet.

39 and holding

Seriously, don't ever use that phrase when someone asks how old you are.

Other things not to say:

• You're only as old as you feel.
• 40 is the new 30.

I say this because I recently turned 39.

I wouldn't say I'm  handling it badly, but it's not exactly fun. I don't like thinking that the first half of my life is basically over. I'm not sure that I like my kid's daycare teacher calling me "sir", either.

39 is a strange age. You're leaving the age of irresponsibility and you're not quite into that age where you automatically get respect. It's the Purgatory of ages.

A few years back, I bought a skateboard with a laughable sum of  money that my old job called a "bonus". It's hanging in my garage and every day that I see it, it taunts me. It's like "Hey, remember when you used to be athletic?"

This manifested itself about a year ago when I went with a group of guys to Gatlinburg, TN for a bachelor party weekend. Why Gatlinburg? Well, we were gonna rent a cabin and have a "guy" weekend. Sounds highly gay, but it wasn't. At least I don't think it was. There was a hot tub and a lot of alcohol. Maybe it was gay. Anyway, back to the story. There was a place in G'burg called "Ober Gatlinburg" where you could snow ski or snowboard. Because I'm fluent in many, many languages, I can tell you that "Ober" is German for "Over". See? You really take away something after reading my blog.

Now, I have always wanted to snowboard, and I have never planned a trip to do it. So, I took my chance and rented a board and learned. After much falling, I kinda got good at it. So, that bolstered my confidence and I decided to try a jump... off a ramp... in the snow. After all, I am a former skateboarder. What could possibly go wrong?

A faceplant, that's what. One thing I conveniently forgot was that my feet were strapped in to this snowboard and that I couldn't control myself after the jump. I landed on my face/shoulder and my shoulder bone hurt for at least a year or more -- no exaggeration. Back in the day, I could break both of my legs and be walking the next day.

Maybe this is my fate. I dunno. I'm trying not to let it bother me, but it's hard not to think about it.

Just the other day, a guy at my office sent out a nostalgia email, but it was about kids who were born in the 80's. I was appalled when I saw a picture of the computer game "Oregon Trail", except it was the full-color one. FULL COLOR? Double-U. Tee. Eff. Oregon Trail is a monochrome game, and you played it on an Apple IIe. None of this full color crap. We didn't have no stinkin' computer mouse, either. If you couldn't use the arrow keys, you didn't play. 

I don't necessarily want to be young again, either. Stuff was crazy in the 70's/80's -- the threat of nuclear war, an AIDS epidemic, women wearing "Units", and Kajagoogoo. I'm surprised we survived. 

Plus, I didn't know then what I know now. I have a good life, with a great wife and two beautiful kids. Financially, we're secure, and we both have good jobs. I love where I live, and I like how things are progressing in life. I can make my own choices and I can eat my dessert before my supper. Take that, Mom.

Maybe 39 ain't so bad.

Pooptacular.

I was always a good student. I tried hard. I studied. Many things came to me naturally.

Because of this, I got bored easily in grade school. They say idle hands are the devil's workshop. For me, an idle mind was the devil's playground.

Now, I had completely forgotten about this story until this past weekend, when I attended a 25-year reunion of the 8th grade class of my Catholic school in my hometown.

So, let me set up the story for you, because I want you, the reader, to fully understand the environment I was in and how this event affected me the way it did.

I was in 8th grade at the time, and our home room was on the second or third floor (depending on how you looked at the building). The room had a giant blackboard on the front wall, and a huge bank of windows on the left side. The rest of the layout doesn't matter.

Now, the building was built on a hill, which is why it's hard to determine if we were on the third floor or not. The windows overlooked a big open area between our building and another building. This open area sloped downward. I guess the best way to get an idea of what it looked like would be to extend your left arm out, parallel to the ground. Now, bend your arm at your elbow to make a 90-degree angle with your arm. Now, lower your hand (but not your elbow) until it's at a 45-degree angle.

That was easy, no? Okay, screw you. It's not my fault you suck at math.

I think we had assigned desks, but it's hard to remember. Did I mention it's been 25 years? My desk was in sort of the middle-back of the room.

It was on this fateful day that we were studying infinitives. Now, for you illiterates, the infinitive form of a verb is the base form plus the word "to". For example, "to be", "to live", or "to make a !@#$% 45-degree angle with your arm". Okay, that last one might not be a good example. How I can remember that we were studying infinitives, I'll never know. I just remember that our teacher was trying to illustrate these with a picture of an umbrella on the blackboard. Don't ask how that illustrates infinitives. I might be fuzzy on that part.

Well, I began to get glassy-eyed and I decided to turn and look out the window. You know how in movies they show flashback scenes in slow motion? Yeah, that's how I remember this.

About that time, I see this large white bird come swooping down and he decides to pull up, hard. I'm guessing the g-forces were a little too intense, because it was at that moment he decided to evacuate his bowels.

Now, infinitives aren't funny. I don't think I've ever seen any book in the "Humor" aisle of any Barnes and Noble. I don't think I've ever heard any stand-up comic devote a bit to infinitives, either. So, you can imagine that when I let out an audible giggle, that my teacher, obviously not having seen any infinitive humor either, wondered what in God's name I could be laughing at.

I went cold. She asked me what was so funny, and well, I'm an honest guy. I figured I had better tell her, because the truth shall set you free. Whoever said that is a lying bastard. Poop humor is only funny to a certain percentage of people. My 8th grade teacher isn't in that elite crowd.

[cue the Doogie Howser theme]

Well, I got the equivalent of an "F" for my daily grade in English that day, but I learned something important...
Your 8th grade teacher can be a real pain in the ass, and the fact that you find a divebombing pooping bird funny will carry you very far in life. In fact, people will begin to love you because you can make them laugh, and your future wife will tell you that it's one of the things she loves most about you, which far, far outweighs a stupid daily "F". I also learned a new infinitive: "to vindicate".

In case of the Rapture, this blog may or may not be manned.

With all this talk of the Rapture, I couldn't help but throw my hat into the ring. I've been thinking a lot about it lately, and probably not in a good way.

There's some differing viewpoints (crazy, I know) on the Rapture. Some think that it's going to happen on a certain day and, on that day, the 'chosen' will be taken to Heaven. Others, like my father-in-law, an ex-priest, say that everyone gets taken all at once, much like when you harvest a crop, and then the bad ones get thrown out.

I don't know which I believe, but I do believe one thing: If you believe in God, then you're an idiot if you think you know the mind of God.

I do believe in God, and I'm smart enough to know that I will never know when God decides to end this whole experiment that we call life.

But, let's play devil's advocate and assume that the wackos that believe the Rapture is happening on May 21st are actually right. We are left with some logistical problems. Namely:

• If you are a bus driver who is driving a load of 'bad seed' kids and you get 'raptured' (if that's a word), and you're traveling down the highway at 65 miles per hour and the bus careens off a cliff (let's assume we're in Colorado) and all the children die, do you go to Heaven, only to get rerouted to hell because God killed you? Or, to put it another way, does God wait until your vehicle is in the parked position before you are taken?
• I keep hearing this urban legend that airlines will have one athiest pilot and one Christian pilot, just in case. What if Captain Churchgoer is sick that day and you get two heathens behind the stick? Will the passengers crash into a creepy lush tropical island where they will subsequently find out that two jerks wrote a crappy ending to a 6-year long series?
• What if you are making your first tandem skydive and your instructor gets poofied away? I'd pull all of the cords, just to be sure.
• What if you are in the middle of a particularly badass triple flip on the trapeze and your partner gets taken. Oh, it's also "no safety net" night.
• What if you had suffered a heart attack because of your years of eating at Popeye's? You're sitting there in the operating room and your whole surgical team vanishes?
• What if you carpool to work and this week, it's Steve from Accounting's week to drive, and he takes the God elevator? Who am I kidding? No accountants are going to be raptured.
• The rapture is supposed to happen on May 21st. Is that America time, or will The Big Man upstairs start at the international date line? Will there be a rolling rapture that happens with the sun? I guess what I'm saying is, what time should I set my alarm for?
• If you are at a theme park, and you're riding a rollercoaster and the person operating the ride goes to Heaven, do you get free rides all day? I'm not saying you should, I'm just saying you have a pretty good argument in court.
• If you happen to be competing in a baseball tournament and the opposing team hits a pop fly that would easily be caught by the centerfielder, but he goes to the Home Run in the sky, and the runner scores, causing your team to lose, is the game ruled a loss, or what?
• If you are at one of those stupid team-building outings that companies have and you're doing trust falls with a co-worker (I think you see where this is going), is the day considered a failure? 
• If you are on an extreme vacation and you decide to go into one of those shark cages, and while you are down, the boat crew ascends, who does your family sue?

I don't want to give the wrong impression. I think God can do what he/she wants any time, regardless of the consequences.  However, it would seem to go against what we believe.

Several years back, before I was married, my wife was rooming with this girl who as a devout Baptist. The three of us had gone shopping for some groceries and I saw a car in the parking lot with a bumper sticker that said "In case of Rapture, this car will be unmanned", and I began to laugh. The roommate told me that if I truly believed, that I would be saved. Fantastic! However, just because one has a bumper sticker doesn't mean that person is a nice person and furthermore, you can't know the mind of God. So, it was my opinion that the car owner had a pretty high opinion of himself/herself. Also, what happens if they sell that car to a serial killer. Does the rapture guarantee get tranferred with the title?

All the same, I'm gonna call in sick on May 21st and I'm gonna dress in some comfortable clothes. No sense being uncomfortable in Heaven.

You say it's your birthday? Ba na na... I don't care.

I'm not a huge fan of birthday parties. I'm happy for other people to have them, but I've got a pretty bad outlook on mine. It probably has to do with the fact that I was born on my parents' second anniversary, so I had to share that day with them for, well, forever.

Now that I'm older, birthdays mean a lot less. I guess I'm bitter that I missed out on a lot of the birthday parties as a .kid.

Yeah, I know... wah wah wah.

Recently, I went to a birthday party for one of my youngest daughter's classmates. I don't go to many of these birthday parties, but I wanted to try to make a change and start going to them. This... was a bad idea. It's not a bad idea to be with your kids. It's a bad idea to go because you get to experience what's wrong with the world: other people.

First, let's start with the timing of the party. Whether you are a parent or not, you can logically figure out a time that it's best to have a birthday party for a kid.

1. Do you have it on a weeknight? No, because, believe it or not, some people work for a living. 
2. Do you have it on a major holiday? No, because nobody will show up.
3. Most importantly, do you have the party during the time when your kid (and all of the people invited to the party) take their daily naps? NO. FOR GOD'S SAKE, NO.

Ignoring rule #1 -- bad, but not a game-changer.

Ignoring rule #2 -- not as bad, but pretty dumb.

Ingoring rule #3 -- Everyone will hate you forever.

This parent ignored rule #3.

The parents invited siblings, which means both of my children missed a nap for that day. It's a lot like the Hulk. You wouldn't like them when they've missed a nap. Now, why does this bother me so much? The parent of the birthday girl mentioned openly, "We got the last open time slot for the party."

Let's analyze that. Firstly, if you can't get a good time slot for your kid, then make the party for another day. Second, your child's birthday - and this is the part that completely perplexes me - is ON THE SAME DAY EVERY YEAR. How can you not plan for that? We're already planning Birthdaypalooza* right now.

Next, they had it at one of those specialized gyms for gymnasts. That might seem redundant -- a gymn for gymnasts, but I'm trying to distinguish between something like a high-school gym and a place where Béla Károlyi sleeps. The gym only had two people helping with umpteen kids. So, it was a lot of chaos. I realize any given group of two-year olds is chaos, but we're at a place where they can fall off some pretty high things, and there weren't many people watching them. I was being Mr. Overprotective. It turns out that the kids were fine, but man.

Lastly, the mom miscalculated the time she had reserved the party, and instead of a two-hour party, it was an hour and a half. We had to rush through eating and she suggested that everyone load up their kids and take them down the road to a public park. Yeah... good idea... after they missed a nap and have just been loaded up on sugar and adrenaline. Imagine early Robin Williams (a.k.a. the funny Robin Williams) on 13 espressos and an IV of Red Bull.

So, when we got back home, it was meltdown time. There was lots of crying, screaming, tantrums... and the girls were upset too. Of course, you can't let them take a nap at 4:00 because they will never sleep that night. It was a nightmarish hell. My wife was curled up in the corner in the fetal position with a had a blank stare and all I could hear was the song "Happy Birthday" in that labored breathing you do after you've been crying for an hour straight. Pics on Facebook soon. (Just kidding, Facebook sucks)

If you are a parent reading this, and you schedule your child's birthday during the Generally Accepted Nap Time, you are an evil, evil person and I hope your kid grows up to like Twilight.

On a side, and more evil note, I was standing beside my wife talking to another parent about her two-year-old daughter's upcoming birthday party. I use the word "talking" in the generic sense. She's one of those people that always seems to turn the subject of the conversation back on herself and her family. Not that she ever had to turn the subject back to herself. She never shut up the whole time, so there wasn't an opportunity to change the subject to anything else. She informed us that she had to call around the state of Alabama to find 7 women who could/would play the role of all of the Disney princesses. It was just such a chore. How was she going to handle it?

Maybe you didn't catch that I said the little girl was !@#$% TWO. Yes, we got our invitation. It arrived in a tubular container just like Mike Brady used to have lying around on his desk. Inside was a scroll attached to a wooden rod with rounded finials. And yes, I'm so damned ashamed for knowing what a finial is. I've placed my man card in the mail back to Guy Headquarters. But I digress.

This is what happens when you have too much money and you want to make sure your child grows up to be hated by others.

Oh well. Maybe the princess chicks will be hot.

*Birthdaypalooza: The time of the year in the Annoying Brain household where the three women in my life have birthdays that occur inside a one-week period. I don't call it this because it's a big bash. I just like saying the word "palooza". Palooza.

What's it gonna take to put you into this car today?

Car buying. It's not the sort of thing one wants to do very often, which is why we don't. However, certain events prompt you to take the plunge, such as a new baby or, in this case, the passing of a decade (or more).

After 11 years, we finally decided that Mrs. Annoying Brain's car (a Honda Accord) was past its prime. Not that it was running badly -- it wasn't. It's just that well, c'mon. IT'S BEEN 11 YEARS.

So, we decided to 'sell' the car to my wife's father, who will be giving it as a present to our niece before she heads off to college. (she doesn't know that. Don't tell her.) For a car that old, it's really in fantastic shape. There's actually nothing wrong with it at all, other than the fact that you have to hand-crank it with that little thing in the front and the car was made before seat belts were invented. Other than that, it's a solid ride.

It's the whole car-buying business that gets me all worked up. This isn't going to be news to anyone, but damn, why do car salesmen have to be slimeball jackasses? We first went to the local dealer, Tameron Honda in Birmingham. The fact that I mentioned them first in the article doesn't bode well for them, and it shouldn't. That sales routine that car salesmen use is so tired. It's so old. At least try something new on us. You're as transparent as can be.

The whole story of how we got the car is great, because the cast of characters is as good as any B movie. First, we made an appointment with a girl salesman. I thought "Awesome! A chick! They don't have the raw nerve that a man does when it comes to car sales".

Well, I was right. She didn't have the raw nerve, but she apparently could memorize a script. The thing was, she was horrible at her job. Seriously, they could have put a cardboard cutout of a chick that smelled like cigarette smoke, had a horrible dye job and fake nails that were way overdue for a touch-up. The first line out of her mouth was "I'm going to do everything I can to treat you guys right." Run for cover when you hear that.

Well, she left us sitting at her desk for about 15 minutes. A) this is rude and, B) it's the oldest tactic in the book. Then, she 'didn't have the authority' to make the deal herself, so she got her manager, who was a moron. You're going to charge us 500 dollars for mud guards? "Well, they're already installed. I can take them off, but it's going to leave big holes in the body." Right, stupid ass. Way to try and overcharge us for something that comes on every single car.

It just goes on and on after that, and we had told them when we walked in that morning that we weren't prepared to buy. Also, in an economy when people aren't buying cars, you can't really afford to try to jack with your customers. So, we told him we had a better deal with a dealer from south Alabama (which we did) and we walked out.

Literally 10 minutes later, my wife's phone was almost ringing off the hook. "We probably got off on the wrong foot..." blah blah blah blah blah. My wife said "Okay, well thanks for the call, but you can't beat the other guy's price. Bye."

Ten minutes later, her phone rings again. They keep trying to get closer to the number, but they keep trying to nickel and dime us for stuff. Seriously, this is straight out of the douchebag handbook.

So, my wife calls the dealer in south Alabama who says "Yeah, I've got the car you want. I'll put on the options you want and I'll drive it up to meet you." All this, for less than the price Tameron quoted us. The south Alabama guys says, "You bring me a check and we're all done."

And it was just like that. We met him on a Sunday, gave him the check, got the car, and we've been happy ever since.

Now, I ask you... why can't it always be like that? No muss, no fuss. I want a car, I'm willing to pay x dollars, done deal.

After we got the car, Tameron still had us on their automated email service... "Have you purchased your car?"  You bet your sweet ass we have. Sucks to be you.

Here's the question that still boggles my mind, even today: Why would a dealer not meet your demands and lose a car sale over a few hundred dollars? The guy in south Alabama sold the car, made the commission, and  made his dealership happy. Tameron sold a big pile of jack squat.

Maybe I don't understand the big picture, but I understand OUR picture. We got a car for the price we wanted to pay and we had no hassle.

I have to drive by Tameron every day on the way to take my kids to school, and every day, I get a big, self-satisfying grin knowing that we won. Nothing feels better than getting the better of a scummy car salesman.