Although “favorite” might be a stretch, I really like the movie Rounders. There are so many one liners that and parts that just stick with me. Especially John Malkovich’s awkward accent as “Teddy KGB”. The most relevant of the one liners to me recently is what I titled this post. I feel so unsatisfied.
We got the Mrs.’ car accident taken care of. Well, the “we” part was a bit lacking — she did 99% of it. First call to insurance led us to a Friday appointment with an adjuster (the accident happened on Monday the 27th). That was too long to wait, so she got it to another adjuster that had walk-in type hours the next day (Tuesday). He got the paperwork taken care of and said that the car was probably going to be totaled. Friday (still taking the same week here) we got a call from the total-loss guy and got that paperwork started. The settlement they offered was dead on with what we were prepared to argue and we accepted the paperwork through email and hand delivered it back to the adjuster. We picked up our check today. Way to go Farmers! Really, I was prepared for an argument — or at least to back up the Mrs. in her’s. Nothing like getting worked up for a fight an then nothing.
Well, in the midst of all this, we’ve been looking for a replacement car for the Mrs. for a while now. My brother is a salesman at a local dealership and we’ve been talking with him about it and we even had his ‘guy’ out checking auctions for us. We had also been checking his dealership’s website looking at what was out there. After driving an Equinox and an Escape (both used of course…), we decided that the cars were essentially the same other than looks. The Equinox held the lead in this category slightly, but we never ruled out the Escape.
Well, last Friday, we checked the dealership’s website and found an 06 Escape in the miles and (almost) the price range we wanted. They also had an Equinox on the lot that was a little more, uh, loved, but cheaper for sure. It felt like that was going to be the day. We drove both and it came down to my short wife being able to see out of one of the car better. The Escape was the car for us and our car fever was about maxed out. Now, we were working with my brother and it was the last day of the month, so good time to deal, right? Well, not so much. The vehicle was already priced really low for the mileage, age, and condition it was in according to our research. But we tried anyway. We started out the back-and-forth with about $1500 off of what they were asking and sent my brother out for the approval. Well, the general manager was not so, well, pleased with it and basically said, “Thanks, but no thanks”. We tried again and again a couple of times, but we ended up not getting much off of what the dealer had it listed for. But like I said it was still a good deal according to our research ($2k+ less than KBB, among others…)
So all that preparation for the fights and nothing, really, out of either of them. Insurance treated us well, and I still feel my brother did the same. I still, just, feel so unsatisfied.
Finally enough talking about it, we finally did it — we cancelled our cable TV. As I wrote about before, it was strangely painful for me. My wife? No so much. She was ready for it to be gone. Really we didn’t watch much on the HD-Expanded-Basic-Digital-blah-blah-blah that we were paying an absurd amount for each month. We were afraid we’d miss Psych on USA and the NHL games on Versus. Well, we can catch Psych on Hulu and, well, I just miss hockey.When we have told our friends we were going to do this, it seemed like the guys were generally shocked and wondering what we would do for TV — the women were happy for us. It really was a strange dichotomy of results.
So I’m recording the Colorado Avalanche last night on the TiVo to watch when I get home. It’s sometime in the middle of the third period, so I rewind to the start of the game and I see this on my screen.