The old car was running on borrowed time. If it had been a cat, it would have used up 11 of 9 lives, if you catch my drift. So when it finally gave up its last breath in the parking lot of a Mel's Diner one Sunday, Walt had had it. "That's it!" he said, pounding his fist on the steering wheel, and we went car shopping that afternoon (after we had the car towed back home).

Getting a new car had been in the back of his mind for quite awhile, so he'd done his homework. Still, he wanted to be sure by test driving a couple different cars. At one dealership they had lost the keys to the car we wanted to test drive. Another one also lost the keys, but then found them. One dealer didn't even ask us if we needed help, and we had been there for 15 minutes and had sat in 3 different cars.

The last dealership was better. The first sales guy didn't pressure us, and he even had the keys when we wanted to test drive. It was settled--Walt wanted this car.

Of course the next guy on the sales totem pole was more pushy, but that's to be expected. Sales guy number 2 insisted that Walt call his car insurance provider to add the car before he'd even signed the papers. He was on the phone for a good 20 minutes with the provider, which wasn't bad, but at the same time, sales guy 2 kept interrupting him and trying to shove papers under his nose for him to sign. Luckily I was able to take a better look at all those papers. I had to tell the sales guy to give us a minute since Walt was still in the middle of talking to the insurance company. What you gonna do?

We made sure we didn't get suckered into buying extras while swirled up in the fun and excitement of buying that new car. We didn't want to wake up the next day wondering where all the money went and why we had a $100 box of car cleansers we could have bought at Wal-Mart for $9.95.

So now Walt has a reliable, safe, fun, sporty, great mpg's, brand-spankin' new car with that wonderful new car smell...ahhh.