Redneck Woman

I've had a succession of vehicles in my driving career. A VW Squareback was the first. Then followed a couple VW Buses, a Toyota pickup, 4 or 5 Dodge/Plymouth minivans, and the latest, a PT cruiser. You can tell... I'm a real performance gear head. hah!

The PT has a 5 speed manual transmission, great gas mileage and a lot of room for its size. I got it when my last minivan died and I had to have a car **now** to get to work and school. It was in the midst of finishing my dissertation, and I had no time to go car "shopping". That led to my first internet car search and transaction. Wow! If you hate car shopping like I do, this was great. I contacted the dealership by email and their internet price was "no haggle" $500 above invoice, and the 2004's were deeply discounted. I went in and selected the car. We were out of there with the new PT in just over an hour. That was 3 years ago.

The PT took us camping, it went to dog shows, it carried home Costco shelves, 8' 2x4's and 2x6's, 20 bag lots of alfalfa pellets, bales of hay, and even took Electra to the vet - haltered but loose. Unfortunately, carrying one bale of hay at a time isn't very efficient, and even I was a bit chagrined at carrying a sheep loose in my car.

Today, I traded the PT in for a Truck.

I'd been looking for a truck for several months. Originally, I thought a van would be better, but came around when the vans I looked at were just as high off the ground as a truck. I even went into a dealership where they pulled every sleazy car sales tactic in the book on me. I'm still fuming at them. So I surfed. Dealer inventories, AutoTrader, ebay Motors, Little Nickel. I drove through another dealer's lot, but couldn't bring myself to stop when I saw the vulture salesmen standing around waiting.

Last week, I thought I'd found The Truck on craigslist. It was a 3/4 ton Silverado long bed with lots of power goodies and set up for towing a trailer. I must've been too late, as the guy never answered my email.

In the middle of all this looking, I'd gone through my insurance company's car buying service. They listed a new 2006 Silverado, bare bones "Classic" truck with a $6000 dealer incentive discount - total around $14K, so I contacted the nearest USAA Chevy dealer probably a month ago. Turns out, it is near impossible to find a 2006 Silverado "Classic" work truck. I gave the internet sales manager my "wish list" for a truck - Work Truck, V-8, Long bed, Towing Package, under 50k miles, KBB or lower price.

He sent an email this morning:

2001 Silverado – White – 2WD – V8 – Regular Cab – 21,000 miles - $10,750

wow. He sent photos:

A 2001 with 21,000 miles??? It sure looked good in the photos.

How many sheep do you think could fit in here? They'd have nice footing on the cushy mat! I helped one gal load up a show string of 8 Jacobs in her pickup with canopy very similar to this.

And inside - little to no wear and tear! With 21,000 miles, you wouldn't expect much. That's much less than my 2004 PT Cruiser!

Well, I changed my plans for the day, scooped out Pete (the PT), and drove to South Tacoma. The Truck looked just as good as its photos and drove great. P1 was already my favorite country station! They stood by the price (with a little reminding....), and later in the week will be doing a bed liner and adding a trailer brake controller. I put The Truck on my VISA card and drove it home.

I have to say it was sad leaving Pete there. It was a really fun car to drive. My preference is for a manual transmission, and it was the closest thing to "sporty" that I've owned. The Truck, though, matches my current lifestyle much more closely. Boots with sheep poo on the bottom, tattered down vest, wooly hat, bits of hay and straw caught in my hair, blue jeans with mud on the hem.

Now I just need to put a shotgun rack in the back window, add some camo seat covers and stick on my bumper sticker: "A Lady with a Gun Has More Fun" ;-)

- Franna