It had been delayed due to lack of funds, and the need for more driving experience, but the momentous day finally arrived---the day that Sarah got her first car!
Our car shopping technique is not exactly typical. First, drive across the state with thousands of dollars in cash to look at a car that a graduate student who is returning to Korea is selling. Before you even get halfway there, listen to your daughter tell you that it’s too late, the graduate student sold the car to someone else.
Spend the rest of the weekend feeling nervous because you’ve got all that cash on you, and feeling thankful that you’re in Pullman, Washington where there aren’t many muggings.
Then, two months later, go out to eat Mexican food. As you leave, crane your neck to check out what cars are for sale in the little car lot next door. A gold car about the same size as my Camry caught Sarah’s eye. The wheels on my car kept rolling back to John’s office to drop him off. He told us that if we wanted to, we should go back and look at that car.
So Sarah and I did. The car was a 1999 Audi A4. It looked sleek and clean with a tan leather interior and black carpeting. It was an automatic, which was good because Sarah hasn’t learned how to drive a stick. We went inside, and asked how many miles it had on it: 113,000.
That night, John and Johnny got online and looked up the Kelly blue book value. Johnny asked if it had all-wheel drive. We shrugged. We hadn’t asked about that. We didn’t even know that was a possibility. He asked us if it said “Quattro” on the trunk. More shrugs from us. Despite the limited information we gave him, it looked like they were asking below the blue book value.
John asked why we didn’t test drive it. We figured he and Johnny have to test drive it anyway, so why bother getting the salesman’s (and Sarah’s) hopes up?
The online search shifted to Subarus because they’ve got 4-wheel drive, a very good option for snowy winters in Pullman, and driving through Snoqualmie Pass. Then it expanded to Hondas because that’s what Johnny drives, so he knows a lot about them.
John called a few people, but the cars they were advertising had already sold.
Schedules got busy. Johnny got sick. Our car shopping enthusiasm wore down, except for Sarah’s.
The next week we passed by the Mexican restaurant car lot a few times while we were running errands, and Sarah always swiveled around to look for the Audi. Once she despaired, “It’s gone!”
Then she sat up taller in her seat, and got excited, “No, it’s still there! They just moved it.”
I told her not to get her heart set on that car. We hadn’t driven it. It might have something wrong with it. Someone else might buy it before we did. She said she knew all that, but I could still hear it in her voice that she was getting attached.
The weekend arrived and she started bugging us. Could we just go down there and test-drive it?
John said he wanted to talk to someone about a Honda Accord. We went to see the Honda Accord, but while we were driving over, it had been sold. This was becoming an annoying trend.
We went to see the Audi. They were closed! For the WHOLE weekend! “The boys” agreed to test-drive it on Monday. The place opened at 8:00. Sarah calmed down.
I called home Monday on my lunch break. Sarah said that John and Johnny were waiting to test-drive it after Johnny got off of work. She was getting a haircut, and then meeting her friend Jerica, who was driving, to go shopping. That would keep her mind off the car.
After work, I was less than a block away from home, when I spotted a gold Audi driving toward me! Johnny and his girlfriend Sarah were in it. I parked my car and climbed in. We went to Costco, and filled the gas tank up. Sarah didn’t know that we’d bought it yet.
Johnny filled me in on the details: how the the car handled, where they drove it, what the salesman told them, and how the car lot is really a side business to their repair shop.
I drove the Audi home. The 4-wheel drive felt very different from my car’s front-wheel drive. It really gripped the road. The interior looked and smelled new. The body was also in great shape. Sarah’s cello will easily fit in the trunk. The back seats can fold down, making the trunk even roomier to haul lots of her things back and forth to college.
My cell phone rang. It was Sarah, “Did they drive the car?”
I tried, unsuccessfully, to be cryptic, then blurted out the exciting news, “Yep, they drove it, bought it, and it’s parked in front of the house right now.” She was still squealing when I hung up.
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| 1999 Audi A4 |
Before we owned one, whenever I’d see an Audi, I had a little joke that I’d always (insert eye roll) say, “They audi bought a BMW.”
Sarah has driven her car every day since we got it. She agrees with my new saying, “You audi drive an Audi.”
Laura Keolanui Stark is looking for the Audi’s owner’s manual. She can be reached at stark.laura.k@gmail.com.
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