I now own two cars

As of yesterday, some time in the 6 hour marathon that was my trip to Menlo Mazda in Menlo Park, I became the owner of two cars. More importantly, I became the new owner of a silver Mazda RX-8, soon to be with spoiler!

So the deed is done. I figured a big event like this would be worthy of starting up my blog again which has lain dormant since the day after Mark got stung by a jellyfish while we were in Maui. That's quite a long time - perhaps I was stung, too. While it gave Mark a burning sensation and whip-like marks all over his body, maybe it made me blog-averse.

I had to lapse into "Darron the Negotiator" mode (a very rarely used mode, I should say) to get what I felt was a fair price, both for me and for the dealer. I suppose the highlight might have been when, on the verge of a deal with Pedro, the internet sales guy over there, I asked him to give me a few minutes while I called another Mazda dealership from across the bay to see if they could give me a better deal. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND this strategy. I called Al over at Putnam Mazda and told him what Menlo was offering me and he said he'd call me back in 5 minutes with a counter offer. 20 minutes passed. Tension filled minutes, I might add, for Pedro. He kept glancing over at my phone as we awaited the return call, passing the time with small talk about his experience growing up in Peru and the Peruvian restaurant down the street.

Sure enough, the other dealer made me an offer for a more loaded car, with $1100 in extra features that I wanted anyway, for just $500 more than the price Menlo Mazda was offering. Pedro disappeared into the back room to talk to his manager and returned to say they'd match the deal. And so my second car was born. Final price for the car itself prior to taxes and all that: $29,200. About $300 over invoice, $1,000 less than Edmunds.com's True Market Value price. Could I have done better, given the time of year? Maybe, maybe not. Will they be offering some crazy cash back deal in the next few weeks that would have saved me thousands of dollars had I just waited a bit? Maybe. Historically, my timing isn't that great (with women, at least). But I won't worry about that - I got a beautiful car that I wanted for less than what I was willing to pay.

So where is it? Why don't I post a photo? Well... I don't actually have it yet in my physical possession. There's this thing about insurance - you've got to have full coverage to drive it off the lot, and I don't have full coverage on my Camaro, so I've had to wait through this long Labor Day weekend for my insurance agent to get back to work! Frustrating? A bit - but c'est la vie.