August 8th, 2009
Dear Readers,
Cheryl's Camry bit the dust last week, a loss of power and the winking of the Check Engine light betokening something wrong, but we never imagined it to be so serious as to render the car useless.
For some reason, the Check Oil light never came on, even when the last drop of oil left the engine. No tell-tale spots in the driveway, or in her regular parking place at Crawford County High School.
But empty of oil it was, and so she sold it for a hundred bucks to a fellow teacher who needed something to fix up and stand more reliable than his beat up truck.
By the weekend, she was ready for her own ride again (we'd been making do with a rendezvous rid and then a couple of days with a loner), and so we headed off to Jasper early Saturday morning. She was determined to drive off in something else that very day. Me, I was planning on a couple of weeks of research and shopping. Foolish me.
"I'm a Toyota girl," she explained to a salesman at our first stop.
The Toyota Rav4 was a neat little thing. There were three on the depleted inventory on the lot. One was already sold; the Rav we took out for a test drive was sold, too, by the time we got back, if we didn't want to buy it.
"Go ahead," she said. "I want to look around just a little bit more." But ... but ... if that's what you want, and they're selling out from under you ... "I want to go to Ruxer Ford," she said. "Dad always talked about how much he liked doing business with them."
A couple of hours later Cheryl was driving off the lot with a Mercury Mariner, a chip off the old block. From the very first, she seemed at home with the saleslady and her selections.
The Mariner is what we went out in first, Cheryl looking at two Escapes and duly making note of them, but the Mariner was it, and somehow we both knew it. The other test rides went well enough, and we both like the vehicles well enough, but ...
Mary Beth Edwards cut the deal and sealed the deal, by talking of her experiences at Ruxer as a customer before joining the sales staff, and then listing the many services Ruxer offered its customers.
"Dad bought Mom her last car here, " Cheryl told her, "wanting her to be taken car of." A lot of the time Edwards spent with us was in conversation like that, instead of any kind of sales pitch. Information had been exchanged early on (she seemed to know her product), and all else was cementing the purchase.
"I like this car," Cheryl said, "and I like her. I really like her. I know what it's like to be a woman in a man's occupation." I could only nod in general agreement, and in amazement, as we celebrated over lunch at next door Los Bravos. Done by noon, and plenty of time remaining to mow the yard and attend to other chores.
- Bruce Simmons |
