It didn’t seem like it was ever going to happen, but it did:
We bought our second vehicle! A 2006 Chevy Equinox!
I can’t even tell you how thrilled I am. We started getting everything done on Thursday, but I didn’t post about it sooner because I didn’t want to jinx anything. I’d set up a meeting with one of the sales guys since Monday and we were to meet on Friday afternoon. We ended up going on Thursday and I just had a really good feeling about everything. Mario kept being all negative saying, “I know we’re not coming home with anything”. I kept reassuring him that I was going to use my best negotiating skills and that we would definetly leave with something. We were going for either a Cobalt or an Equinox, and although we knew we’ve barely established credit and that we didn’t even have a down payment, we wanted the Equinox more.
We got to our meeting about 10 minutes late, 4:30 p.m. We had to pick Eenan up from school and drop him off at home with Mom so that took away some time. The guy I initially spoke to, Steven, was busy with another couple, so he passed us on to a guy named Mike. We told him exactly what we wanted: We had no down payment what-so-ever, we wanted to pay from $350-450 a month only, and we really wanted and Equinox but a Cobalt would be fine if we couldn’t pass for it. He showed us the new Equinoxes, which would be about $500-650 a month. We said ‘nah’ so he showed us a used Silver Metallic one that had just been brought in that day. We checked it out and it was almost brand-new, except for a small, light stain on the back of the driver’s seat, had 13,000 miles on it and of course needed a vacuumm and wash.
Mike had us take it on a test drive around the huge block the dealership was on. He asked us how long we’ve been married and was really impressed when we told him. He whipped out the wallet and showed us pictures of his two baby boys and asked about ours. He was really nice to us, kept offering us Cokes or chips (which we didn’t accept–idiots!), and went back and forth 3 times to get us a good price. Since Mario doesn’t have very good credit, he ran mine first and it passed under mine. I have a score of 716, which I hear is really good, thank God. Mario’s credit’s shot to hell, so at least one of us is okay 
. The payments started out at $620-$650, then $520-$600. We were about to give up and he said, “Okay, let me try one more time.” He came back with a payment of $479 and we agreed. We were insistant and we got what we wanted. We waited another hour while they transferred everything to the banks and he said a few wanted to pick up the loan. Bad thing was that it was already 6 p.m. and the banks were closing so we’d have to finish everything the next day. He gave us the keys to the truck and we came home.
I drove the truck to school the next day and oh my gosh, it’s so awesome. The volume of the radio increases or decreases depending on where the truck’s in motion or stationary. There’s tons of cupholders, a space for my purse, a cool center compartment, lots of lighters (perfect for the kids’ DS chargers!), and lots of space.
We went to pick Eenan up and as we’re waiting in line, we get a call from the school nurse that he’s had an accident. My heart sank. He was leaned over on a desk while they were getting ready to line up outside and told his friend, “Pull me!”, so his friend did and that’s what Eenan fell to the floor and tore his chin open. When we get there his homeroom teacher and the nurse both say they think he needs stitches. Oh, boy.
On the way home we try and calm him down since he freaks out once we tell him what stitches are. He says, “I look like a freak with this bandaid on!” (It amazes me how self-conscious kids are nowadays.) As much as it pained us to do so, we decided to ask Mary if she could take him to the ER since we had the meeting with Mike at the dealership. She says yes, so we go.
Needless to say we arrived late. We gave them all the info they needed and they told us since it was already 5:30 the bank wouldn’t be able to process everything that day–we had to wait till Monday. That meant, since we wouldn’t be signing the papers and it was over the weekend we had to leave the truck. Wonderful. And all we took was the Equinox with us–no other car. I started getting nervous and asked Mike to tell us straight out if we were going to get the truck or not. We also tell him how it’s important that we know if we were getting it or not since we needed a new car in 3 weeks, tops. We even threw in that Mario had a friend at Clark Chevrolet who would probably help us in case it was a no. He says yes, he did think we’d be accepted and that the guy who was taking care of everything was certain the bank would pick it up, the only unfortunate thing was that they’d taken all day to do everything and they still weren’t done. Mike ended up bringing us in the truck (how embarrassing!). He dropped us off at the hosptial, which I was incredibly happy about since I felt so guilty for not being with Eenan when he needed us.
He was in good spirits. He was joking around with us, playing I Spy, playing with his DS, then watching Mario’s Ipod when he got bored with the DS. He was very well-behaved. Not so with other kids in the waiting room. They were barefoot, running around all over the place, and one kid even got his hand stuck in the sliding door because he was trying to stop the door from closing. It amazes me how, I’m not kidding you, 85% of the parents there just let their kids run wild. The kid that got his hand stuck in the door kept SITTING ON OUR LAPS, tickling Eenan and even grabbed him from around the waist when they were looking at the fish tank and thrust his pelvis at him. The kid couldn’t have been more than two years older than Eenan and was acting like he was much, much younger. I can’t stand parents who don’t discipline their kids–then when they see them running around and finally get tired of it they beat them down.
ANYway, Mary got to the hospital with Eenan at 5 something and they didn’t see Eenan till 10:30 p.m. They said they wouldn’t give him stitches; they’d try medical glue and tape first. The part that hurt him the most was when they numbed his chin with the needle. He cried a little bit but remained composed most of the time. I don’t know how he did it–I would have been screaming my head off. The doctors kept calling him a little “trooper” and “soldier”. My little guy was so brave. He kept talking about how embarrassing it was going to be since he was going to have a huge scar, but after we told him he could call it a battle wound and he was the only one out of his friends to have one he felt proud. He kept asking for a mirror .
I felt sort of queasy when the doctor was cleaning out the cut. He was jamming the alcohol-drenched gauze all up in there–it was yucky. We spent a total of 20 minutes, max, in there and after picking up McDonald’s (we hadn’t eaten since breakfast) we got home at 12 a.m.
I spent this morning doing laundry, washing dishes everytime a dish ended up in the sink, fixed John’s incredibly horrific Myspace coding (not his fault–he got it from some website), and mostly being lazy. I was supposed to go to a Quinceañera with Mary, but my throat’s killing me and I just feel exhausted. I’m taking vitamins and I still managed to get sick. Bleh. But yeah, I spent today doing what I’ve been wanting to do for WEEKS!
I got a call from Mike at around 1 p.m. that everything was ready–we’d been approved and the truck was ours. All we needed to do was sign so they’d bring the bank’s paperwork to us. I was going to meet them at Mario’s work so they wouldn’t have to come all the way over here. They call back a few minutes later and tell me that they can’t bring us the paperwork; the bank won’t let them handle it. They ask if I can go in myself on Monday, since they knew Mario couldn’t get the day off. I tell them, “Look. I need to be absolutely sure that the car’s ours and that everything will be clear. I don’t want to make the trip all the way over there just so that you guys can tell me that Mario still needs to go in on Friday, y’know?” So Mike talks to the guys over there then calls back. He says they will meet me and Mario at his work after all so that we can sign a few papers. We can go in together later on during the week when we can (“sooner the better”), but that if they kept the truck on the lot it could be sold to someone else if anyone’s interested since we didn’t leave a down payment. They don’t want to lose the comission of course and we don’t want to lose the truck so we agree to meet.
We get there (John went with me so he could drive the Sentra back. I was in Mary’s Geo since Mario wanted to keep the truck) and we sign the papers and they hand us the keys and say “congratulations”. We agree to meet them at the dealership on Tuesday to finish the paperwork and take in two documents they needed.
Oh and they also let us know that our payments are going to be $100 less than we’d anticipated: it went down to $380! I don’t know much about cars, but I’d say that’s a pretty decent price for an SUV, especially since we didn’t leave a down payment!
Crappy thing: Mario let me know he did get Tuesday off, so we’ll be able to finish everything then. The day he switched to get it off? Friday–MY BIRTHDAY!!! And that’s because he’d just called to ask about it since a guy was doing something with our birthdates. Grr. I don’t even know how to feel about that. I know he’s a guy and most guys aren’t good with dates and that type of stuff (he barely remembers what he did yesterday), so I’m trying not to be too hard on him. This is strike two, though. First our anniversary, now this.
BUT I’m not going to let that bring me down too much.
I own an Equinox!!
P.S. Thank you so much for the comments on my previous entry, ladies :). Your words of support and advice were a huge help :).
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) stuff in the 30 gallon boxes I bought. It was so sad to do, but I had to :(. I took the boxes to our new storage unit, with John’s help, then came home, picked Mom up and we dropped Mario’s wallet off at work. From there, we went to Target where I was to search for some khaki pants for our Final on Monday. No luck at Target. I figured I’d buy a whole new outfit but of course the only nice black pants I liked were a foot longer than I was. Blah.
) and decided, after two solid weeks of preparing John for his driver’s test, that it was time to take him to get his license. He’d been driving when we’d visit Gramma at the nursing home and I had him driving me around in residential areas and down the expressway so I knew he was ready. We woke up early that day, I dropped the kids off at school (their last day before Spring Break), I gave John a practice test around the neighborhood and at 8:30a.m. we left for the DMV. Not before stopping by Aziz to withdraw money from the ATM and picking up a French Vanilla cappuccino for me and a SoBe Adrenaline drink for John. We felt good and I felt positive that he’d pass both tests.
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