Well. If you’re in the loop, you are already aware of the whole car situation. Which is that I drive a two-door guy magnet and am expecting Baby 2.0 on May 9. (Oh yes, they’ve scheduled me- the baby will be here the day after Mother’s Day. More on that later, because we’re talking about CARS.) Oh, and did I mention that, to fit an infant seat in a 2-door Honda Civic Coupe, you have to put it in the middle position and pull the front passenger seat all the way up? Which means you can’t fit another car seat in the back.  State law dictates that children remain in a car seat until age 8.  The laws of physics and a number of scary anecdotes dictate that MY children stay there until the weight and height limits of the biggest, safest car seat on the market, which is currently 110 pounds.  Or college, whichever comes first.  Seriously, son, I promise not to send you off to college with your Britax Frontier. But that’s the best I can do.

What you may NOT know is that our other car is a very practical… red Miata. The upside is that if this car is stuck in a ditch, I can push it out single-handed while Big Mister pilots it.  The downside is… well, first of all, it’s a Miata, which means it seats two, if neither of you is 34 weeks pregnant, and it’s a standard transmission which, by the way, I can’t drive. Also, while the owners manual for the car says you can put a car seat in the passenger side, the owner’s manual for every car seat manufactured after 1999 tells you to never ever ever ever put a car seat in the front seat or your baby will DIE. So if Mister and Little Mister go out together, I have no car.  If I go out by myself, Mister and Little Mister must stay home.

Since we’re pretty sure Baby 2.0 will actually BE an infant when he arrives, the plan was either stay home for at least six months until we could get him into a convertible seat or… buy a car. One with four doors. And a back seat. After a lot of hours with Consumer Reports and our criteria for affordability, reliability, and safety, we had narrowed this down to just three cars.  Two afternoons of test drives narrowed this list further to the Honda CR-V.  On paper I did not expect this to be our first choice car- I thought hands-free sliding doors and a third row seat would win out, and that I’d dislike driving an SUV.  But it turns out that the Civic-based CR-V was the hands-down favorite for both me and Mister.  Little Mister liked it so much that he took a nap during our test drive.

Can I just take a moment her to interject?  Aside from the obvious relief at knowing we now own a vehicle that will carry our entire family and the joy of knowing that we have checked a MAJOR to-do off our list, the best thing about buying a car is that I needn’t step foot in a car dealership for quite some time.  There is something really, really wrong with the whole process of buying a car.  Every salesman (they were ALL MEN) we spoke to tried to convince us to FALL IN LOVE with whatever car they had to sell, asked us a million questions about our needs and our budget and then tried to talk us out of all of them, tried like crazy to convince us to finance a NEW car, and nearly universally ticked my husband off by talking to him over my head like I wasn’t there. Two of them actually tried to convince us that we should buy a new car because we could “hand it down.”  One of them was referring to Ian, who is THREE, in case you’ve forgotten, but the other was actually referring to the contents of my uterus.  Yes, that’s right, Baby 2.0, you have skipped teething, potty training and Kindergarten, we are to go straight to shopping for your first car.

The salesman who came closest to “getting it” has 9 kids of his own, but told us flat out he could not put us in a car for our budget.  We’d have really liked him except he then went on to try and convince us to finance a car with a sticker price THREE TIMES what we cared to spend. I know car salespeople are in the business of selling cars, but the whole process set off our bullfeathers detectors in A Big Way.

We are pretty straight-shooting people.  Neither of us beats around the bush.  We were VERY clear on the fact that I am a STAY HOME MOM, that we would be paying CASH for our car purchase, and that the “highest payment” we were comfortable with is NOTHING.  We were also not shy about revealing that I’d done HOURS of internet research before we ever drove a car.  So the jack-holes who thought they could pressure us into buying a $25,000 car by telling us we’d never find ANYTHING under 10k apparently do not have Google. Or think that I do not. Or, apparently, that my husband is prepared to discount anything dug up by the Little Woman in favor of whatever some stranger with a penis chooses to tell him.

In short, we could not make them understand that if this was an EMOTIONAL decision for us, we’d keep our money and drive the completely paid for, highly fuel efficient, and perfectly reliable Honda Civic we already own. It’s just too bad that, practically speaking, doing so is one of those things that proverbially “ain’t gonna happen.”

The rep who actually sold us the car sitting in our driveway was able to bypass a number of these idiotic ploys because we were discussing only one, particular car which he actually had the ability to sell us.  Calling dealerships about similar cars which, by the way, apparently ALL sold yesterday, was excruciating because I learned that there is no way to say “no” politely during this process.  I had to be firm, curt, and prepared to hang up. No, I am not driving to Warrenton to look at a Hyundai. Yes, I know you have a lot of cars, but I asked specifically about a CR-V.

But, as I say, we are done with that now, because there is a 2002 Honda CR-V in our driveway.  The finance department guy who took our money and gave us our paperwork has apparently never met any pregnant women before, because after asking if I was full term, he took his life in his hands and expressed disbelief that I still have five weeks to go.  Let me remind all of you who are reading this that the only RIGHT comment on a pregnant woman’s appearance is “You are really very pretty.” Because I already know that I’m huge, I don’t need you to tell me, and it’s very nice, once in a while, to hear that I don’t look as wretched as I feel. Also, please feel free to follow the compliment with directions to the ladies’ room, because I’m bound to need them.

Which brings me back to the fact that we bought a car.  So we are now a three-car family.  On one level, I think it’s ridiculous to have three cars when only two of us drive, but it does mean we have what Michael always refers to as a “winter car,” meaning he can leave the Miata snoozing comfortably in the driveway when bad weather threatens, and that I can go out by myself without stranding anyone here at home. Also, that we’ll be able to take the whole family out at once after the arrival of Baby 2.0, which is bound to be better for our social life than the alternatives.

I drove it back from the dealership and then the Misters took it on an inaugural run for a Daddy/Son fast food dinner, which delighted them both. Also fed them, since I realized when we got back that I had given exactly zero thought to what was for dinner after spending the day at the dealership.  Ian celebrated the novelty of riding in a four door car by demonstrating that the child lock was NOT engaged on the door nearest his seat. That’s right, he opened it.  While the car was in motion.  Fortunately, it was a neighborhood street, and the child lock that disables the interior handles is now engaged.  (What did parents do without THOSE?)