Let's see, in the last installment I had a written quote for $21,193 on the Altima of my dreams. There isn't one in the city and the closest one is somewhere in Texas. I felt this was a bit to my advantage, any Nissan dealership could get it so it being out of state, maybe I could shop around for the best deal without one place holding it hostage.

Friday afternoon I get a call from the Peckerhead, the sales manager at the northern dealership. He says, it just so happened that the lot in TX needed a car from his lot so he traded and brought the Altima up here that morning knowing that's what I wanted. I pretended to be happy to hear this, hung up and immeadiatly realized I was going to have to change my game plan. He had that car, he knew I wanted it and probably wouldn't let it go for too much lower than $21,300. The fucker was holding it hostage. That wasn't in the plan.

After work I show up at the lot. The car was off to the side of the building, the name of a Texas dealership on the sticker. We go inside and they had already half filled out a purchase agreement on the car with my name on it.

"Can you do better on the price?"

"No."

"But there's no transportation fee now, the car is already up here, how much better can you do?"

"How much better do you want me to do?"

I produce the written quote from the southern dealership, "this would be a good start". Manager Peckerwood seems a bit pissed off, like we had an agreement that his place was the only place I'd buy from and I had gone behind his back to get a lower price than the first one he gave me. I knew that was just for show to get me to feel guilty. It didn't work. Then he give me a line about how his boss thought he was crazy for bringing up a '02 when he could have had his pick of any '03 on that TX lot. I give him my best, 'here's a quarter, call someone who cares' face.

At this point he started to act like he's wasting his time sitting there haggleing over the price and says he'll sell it to me for $21,143, $50 lower than the southern lot quoted me.

"Just $50?" I asked, talk about a slap in the face.

"It's my policy to do better than any quote brought in."

"By $50?" I wanted to add, 'that so white of you.' but didn't.

"That's the best I can do. You can shop that quote around but you won't find anywere that will do better. I'm putting that car on the lot tonight to be sold." and he gets up and walks out.

I sit there and the sales guy that I've been dealing with sits down after standing by the door the entire time. He plays the good guy to Peckerwood's bad guy and says, they aren't making much money on the car, they have to keep the lights on, he's so apologetic about charging so much, blah, blah, blah. I thanked him for his time, because he was a nice guy and left.

From there I went home, grabbed a few things and drove 150 miles to my parents house. I couldn't sleep at all that night, I was going over ways to get that car and planning for every possible line they could give me.

Saturday morning I went to the dealership a few miles from my parents house. I asked for a saleswoman, Becky, that I had talked to before. She knew my parents since she worked briefly where they work. Mom didn't know what an Altima looked like so she showed up the only Altima that was on the lot.

We go in and sit down, I tell her exactly what I want and she says she'll locate one. She comes back a few minutes later and says the closest one was in Oklahoma City. Big surprise but I didn't say a word or let my expression change. I had talked to her on the phone Thursday and asked if she could do better than OKC prices. "Of Course" she says. I tell her that I went to one dealership with a written quote and he insulted me by doing $50 better.

She comes back with $21,000. That's still a bit much. She asks what I want to pay. "$19,500" I say.

"I can't do that."

"at invoice."

"I probably can't do that either."

"$20,700."

She looks at some numbers and says that's do-able. She leaves and comes back with a paper and writes that if $20,700 is agreeable to all parties that's what I'll buy the car at. The she askes what about the trade in. She says as old as my car is, they can't give me much for it and I'd probably be better off selling it myself, did I still want to trade anyway?

At that question I felt my body crash and said I'd think about it after lunch. A few hours later after dad had helped me vaccuum out the car and wipe down the dashboard and clean it out he told me to run it down there and see what I could do. I asked him to come with me. "I'm emotionally exhausted and I really need the support. All you have to do is just sit there and make sure I don't get talked into anything stupid."

We walk in and sit in the lobby. Becky comes in and gets the keys so my car can be evaluated. A bit later she says they'll give me $300 in trade. I've put $2,000 in repairs in the last 15 months, $300 was unacceptable. So she says that if I don't trade in, I could have the car at invoice, which she told me was $20,638 and there would be no transportation fee. Edmunds.com says invoice on that car is $20,338. They are making $300 on that car. That's probably the best price I'm going to get.

So I took it.

I get a car a bit cheaper than I was prepared to pay for it, I don't have to do business with Manager Peckerwood, I get the car off his lot so he won't make any money off it, and this evening mom writes me a check for $5,000 to put with my $5,000 I was using as a down payment so I only have to borrow a bit over $10,000 from the bank.

This is almost over.

So Monday while someone is picking up the car from OKC and taking it to my hometown, I'll be not too far behind it to pick it up in the afternoon and drive it back home to just a few miles away from where it was about 8 hrs eariler.