Steve: a tribute

My Smaller Half and I went to check out used cars on Saturday. It was an extraordinarily painful experience because the used car salesman we got seemed to have been sent direct from central casting with instructions to be sure to not under-act.

He was an enormously tall and fat ruddy-faced English bloke called Steve. All fine so far. But then he opened his mouth. Steve talked non-stop. And whatever came out of his mouth was either idiocy or lies.

For example, first he was trying to push on us a car with 200,000 km on the clock. His argument was something like this:

Mate, if a car is running this good after 200, it'll run forever. That's a bargain that.

But then, when trying to push on us one with only 75,000 km on it, his argument was:

This is a real find. Only 75 on it. Just like a brand new one.

So apparently the total mileage (kilometrage?) is of no relevance in the worth of a car. And apparently if you never say the word "thousand", people won't notice that the car has been driven to the moon and back.

Another classy thing Steve did was whenever I leaned down to inspect any of the various dings and scratches on the cars was to lick his thumb, rub it vigorously over the blemish, and announce:

Nah mate, that'll buff right out, won't even show. I'd have done it already but I'm that busy. Still, must have been a woman driver eh? Eh? Oh 'allo, the missus not listening to me? I been married thirty years. And you only get fifteen for murder! How's that fair?

He had a whole host of jokes like that that he showered us with all morning, like the contents of a chamber-pot gently falling from an upper-storey window.

Then we started talking money. He'd been telling us all about what a great deal we could get because it was the end of the month and this and that. So when he tells us the listed price for this car we were interested in, we offer him two grand less, as a starting point for negotiation. So he has to go and call his boss, in another room, to "spin him a bit of a yarn and get a good price" for us. Of course - because he's our best friend!

He comes back in, shaking his head. Unfortunately there's been a terrible mixup and the boss is furious! The car has been listed at the WRONG PRICE! Gasp! So not only can they not consider our lower offer, but after today they'll have to increase the price so it's going to be $2000 more expensive than it is today. We are just so lucky!

After this egregious insult to our intelligence, we simply stood up and walked out. Steve looked a bit surprised, but I could hear him still talking behind us as we left, trying to ham it up with various bystanders, exclaiming about how this fantastic car that was just like a new one was accidentally priced too cheaply and my goodness what a bargain it was and he'd buy it himself if he was allowed and they don't even make them like this anymore, these days they're all plastic and Korean and you can purchase a warranty at a great price but why would you want to since it'll run forever especially since it was just like a new one.

Sigh. As you can see, my scars run deep. But not as deeply, I suspect, as his lobotomy scars.