Dossett Big Fool

I have waited too long (again) between posts, and therefore I have lots to say. However, our current situation has provided such an unbelievable story that the old stories will just have to wait.

My 8 year run with Allie the Altima seems to have come to an end. It was a pretty good run. (Insert Larry David here.) But the black smoke pouring out of my tailpipe signifies that the end is definitely here. Our weekend was spent vigorously searching ebay, autotrader, carmax, local and long distance dealers, looking for that one sweet deal.

We have been wanting a Mitsubishi Endeavor ever since my older sister bought one several years ago. Since then it has transfered to my younger sister, and we have borrowed it on numerous occasions. However, those cars seem to be few and far between around here. I did finally find one on Autotrader a few hours from where we live. However, that dealer has been closed all weekend, even today for Memorial Day, and we were tired of waiting.

One dealer that wasn't too far away, Dossett Big Four, had a couple of Envoys listed on their web site, and they both looked like good deals. We were so tired of searching and cramming into Jack's truck whenever we needed to go somewhere. We were just ready to pull the trigger on something. An Envoy sounded nice, and both were reasonably priced. I called the dealer to make sure they were open on the holiday, and the secretary answered. She informed me that today was the last day of Autofest, and all of their salesmen and all of their inventory were at a huge lot with 2 other dealers. They would be there until 9pm. It sounded like a good plan to me.

As we made the drive, we were psyched to come home with our new car. We were ready to buy. When we hit the lot, we first found the Envoy we came to buy. One had sold but one was left, and as we wandered the lot, we were surprised that we were not assaulted by salesmen. After a long weekend of touring every dealership within 45 miles of our home, we were amazed that no one came running to our aid with promises of low interest rates and rock bottom prices. (Most of them also had stories about how they were raising 3 kids and had a fiance living in California to visit or just had a grandkid in Sydney Australia, so they needed our money to go see the little brat. Basically, they all promised to do "whatever it takes" to sell us a car.)

While searching for a salesman at Autofest, if you can believe we actually had to do that, we happened upon a beautiful 2009 Chevrolet Equinox. It had less than 20,000 miles on it, and it was maroon. Perfect for tailgating; it would match exactly with our new MSU tent. We were psyched, and I knew that one of the cars parked before me would soon be ours.

Still no salesmen in sight, so we decided to just see what the other dealer next door had to offer. We barely set foot on the lot before that salesman was shaking our hands and loading us into his golf cart to see the deals. We agreed to test drive a Jeep Grand Cherokee, and when we returned, he already had another running. He said he figured he would cool it off for us so we could take it for a spin too. This guy was serious about selling us a car and even insisted that we come inside after a few test drives to talk about financing and bottom line pricing. We didn't really have a choice, even after admitting to him that we still wanted to check out a couple other cars (the Envoy and Equinox were calling). He practically begged us to come inside, so we obliged. We finally got out of there to his dismay and ran back to Dossett Big 4 to buy our car before it was gone.

When we got back to Dossett, we wasted no time and went straight inside to play let's make a deal. We were met at the door by a man that can only be described as a car salesman, right down to the sunburned skin with the unbuttoned print shirt and gold chain reflecting off of his red, hairy chest. The only difference between this guy and any other car salesman was that this guy did not want to sell us a car.


Jack: Hi, are you a salesman?

SM: Well, not really. I'm the sales manager, so I don't really know anything.

He was obviously joking, so we offered the obligatory chuckle. If he was the sales manager, then he was just the man we needed to see.

Jack: Well, we really like that Envoy; we saw it on the web site and that's the one we came for, but we just saw the Equinox a few minutes ago, and we are interested in that one too. I don't see it over there right now. Did you sell it already?

SM: No, it hasn't sold. They just took it to fill up with gas.

Jack: Great, then we would like to test drive those two and maybe get an opinion on which one you might recommend.

SM: Well, we are trying to close down for the day.

We waited for the ...BUT... but no but came.

Jack: Um, ok. We just want to check out those two, and then I think we will be ready to make a decision. (hint hint)

SM: Well, we have been trying to close down for a few minutes now, and I already put the keys away.

At this point, I jump in and tell him that when I called the office BEFORE we drove all the way out there, the secretary told me that they would be there until nine.

The sales manager said it was just too bad he had already sent the sales staff home. His exact words were: "It's just me and the owner here now so we can't really do anything for you."

Just the manager of the sales and the owner of the company. They couldn't help us.

Jack: Are you sure, man? We drove out here an hour and a half for this one particular car. Are you sure we couldn't just see it real quickly?

SM: Oh where did you drive from? yeah, I sold a lot of cars this weekend to people from where you live. A lot of cars. It's just that I already put the keys up for the day. All these cars are going back to our lot first thing in the morning. Why don't you just come back tomorrow?

Jack: Well, we came today because I had the day off and because our car just died so we kind of need to go ahead and get something else. And because we were told you would be here for 4 more hours.

SM: Yeah, I'm sorry she told you that. We are closing up now.

At this point, Jack and the Sales Manager are in an arms crossed stare down stand off. The sales manager had a "I don't give a you-know-what" smug look on his face. Jack wore an expression that I could only interpret as disbelief mixed with 'are you telling me that between the sales manager and the OWNER of the company, as I am standing here before you practically begging you to sell me a car, you cannot help me today because it is almost five o'clock?'

Either this guy had a date with the captain of the cheerleader squad to get to or he had been out in the sun so long that the reasonable portion of his brain had been fried. Some salesman. He didn't even have to sell us a car. All he really had to do was hand us a key and hit print on the sales receipt and we were ready to sign our souls on the dotted line. But he didn't budge. Finally I dragged Jack out of the stand off, and we drove away without our car.

We are going tomorrow to buy the Endeavor that we found on Autotrader.

I hope that cheerleader was hot.