An Amateur Scientist Recession Special

Brian Thompson, the Amateur Scientist in:

How to Get a Deal on a New Car!

Let me start by clarifying that when I say “new”, I really mean “used”.  But like NBC’s 1996 summer programming lineup, it’s still new to me.  I’ve needed a new/used car for a while now.  Previously, I’d been driving a 1999 Chevrolet Cavalier.  It served me well, especially since I never did anything like wash it, change its oil, or not dump bags of garbage in the back seat.  The alternator went out once.  The paint’s been slowly peeling off these last few years.  Some alien substance of unknown intelligence was leaking from the engine.  But, I didn’t really see any of these as problems.  When the CD player stopped reading burned discs, though?  Unacceptable.

Because my Cavalier could make it at least four blocks before having to fill up, it didn’t meet the mileage threshold for the Cash for Clunkers program.  I was stuck paying for a replacement out of pocket.  And since I only wear cheap suits I buy on eBay, all my pockets are sewn shut.

But I’ve recently waded into a new stream of income.  I won’t go into details, but you should know there’s a lot of cash to be made in unclaimed burial plot futures.  And by “a lot of cash”, I’m talking two, possibly even three digits per month.  American greenbacks.  Well, PayPal transfers.

Anyway, the point is I could afford a car note without sacrificing my current level of disposable income and forcing me to cut back on D&D minis.  Which is especially important since my next campaign involves quite an army of Bullywugs.  And since Christina Hendricks’ attorney informed me she’s not interested in accepting my dowry, I had some money in the bank for a down payment.

I found a used Honda Civic and went in for the kill.  Why a Japanese car?  Because I hate America.

The thing is, I’m a terrible negotiator.  If I can’t get someone to do what I want using the Jedi mind trick, I’m useless.  Sure, the mind trick works on small ticket items.  When the lady at the university book store insisted that I needed to have obtained my new student I.D. before purchasing a geology book, I just kept insisting she was wrong until she backed down.  This isn’t negotiation so much as being a jackass, but it works when there’s not a lot at stake.  When you’re talking about knocking a thousand bucks off a car, a dealer wants to dance.  They want offers and counter offers.  And I’m a terrible dancer.

So I was prepared to pay sticker price for the Civic.  Or, since it was a used car, the painted on the windshield in Day-Glo yellow price.  Good thing my skepticism came to the rescue.

While the dealership’s credit guy was fighting his way through a sea of loan sharks to retrieve my credit score, the gel-tipped salesman and I sat in a waiting room listening to the coffee maker drip and watching The History Channel.  Hitler had the afternoon off, so they were airing a special about whether aliens built the pyramids in Egypt and the Americas.  The gel-tipped salesman told me about how he never paid any attention in history class as a kid, and he regrets it.  “I find all this stuff real fascinating,” he said, waving a hand in the direction of a man with bug-eyed alien heads on his tie pointing at an Incan pictogram that sort of looked like an astronaut.

I didn’t launch into my usual spiel about how this show wasn’t history at all.  I didn’t tell him about how all the talking heads had been caught fabricating evidence in their books or how insulting it is to think ancient people weren’t clever enough to accomplish amazing things.  This guy had my transportation future in his spray-tanned hands.

But I knew something he didn’t, and I thought I might be able to leverage that.  I asked him who he thought built the pyramids, and he said he wasn’t sure.  Since I knew for a fact he found this stuff “real fascinating”, I thought he might like to know the truth.  I told him I knew who built the pyramids, and he believed me.  After all, I wear glasses.  And just a few minutes earlier, I’d explained the difference between upper and lower Egypt (wrongly).  He may have known how to lie to me about the usefulness of a moon roof, but I was an authority on matters historic.  Real fascinating matters historic, at that.

“Tell you what,” I said.  “If you can knock off a thousand bucks, I guarantee you I’ll buy this car today.  And I’ll tell you who built the pyramids.”

Sure, he could have read my previous column about alien astronaut theories, but I was pretty sure he wasn’t a Pink Raygun reader.  I mentioned I wanted a car with TARDIS-like roominess, and he had no idea what the hell I was talking about.  He bit.

Granted, the big scrape on the back bumper and the crayon marks in the passenger seat upholstery might have been reason enough to knock off a few bucks, but, like I said, I’m a crap negotiator.  Intellectual bribery, however?  Expert!

I signed the title, and he tossed me the keys.  “So who really built the pyramids?” he asked.

“The Egyptians,” I replied.

If it hadn’t been jacked up on Botox, his face would have fallen.  “But how?  They’re so advanced!”

“Amazing, yes,” I said.  “But only brick.  If they really had alien technology, why didn’t they make anything as kickass as a Honda Civic?”

And as I drove into the sunset, I heard his sobs echoing ever so faintly through my open moon roof.

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About The Amateur Scientist: Brian Thompson is a professor of amateur science at a major imaginary university and a regular blogger at CHUD. He has been able to read and write for over seventeen years.

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