Horseface Steve and Chuck

Take Advantage Of: To make use of for one's own benefit or for a selfish purpose.


Sometimes I need to have other people tell me when I'm behaving well.  I marvel at how hard it is to pay myself a compliment.  I marvel at how easy it is to dwell on the negative when I review my actions at the end of each day and at how easy it is to dismiss my achievements, mostly because my Buick-sized ego thinks achievements should be large and dramatic.  My ego doesn't think much of a simple life well lived.


Recently I decided to buy a new car.  This, of course, falls squarely in the camp of "things I didn't have to worry about when I was drinking."  I fondly remember the car I was driving when I got sober: a 1965 Plymouth Belvedere station wagon that my grandfather gave me.  It ran just fine unless it was too hot or too cold or it was raining or I hadn't started it in the last 3 hours.  It had one headlight and no radio and the heater didn't work too well.  The brakes were shot, and so were the tires.  Maybe "fondly" isn't the right word.  As you can imagine, it was a terrifying experience to get in that thing.


Anyway, I stopped by a car dealer and spoke with one of the salesmen, grateful that I'm in a position to afford a new car.  I used to take the stance of Me Versus Them when I was trying to buy something.  Today I'm relaxed, less paranoid,  and I understand that everyone is trying to make a living.  I don't naturally assume that people are trying to take advantage of me, to cheat me.  I told this guy, who seemed to be a perfectly decent man, that I wasn't going to run all over town to try to get the absolute lowest price imaginable and that what I expected from him was a fair proposal right out of the chute.  I'm lucky to be in a position where I have a little cushion in my finances; I realize that not everyone can do this, and I'm grateful for that.


Now, I went home and did some homework, of course.  I'm not that trusting.  I found that the guy was being more than fair with me.  I'm going to assume that if I did run all over town, being marginally honest and totally manipulative, trying to play every dealer off of each other that I probably could have saved a few more dollars.   My experience is that when I've behaved this way people have been know to  mutter "what a jerk" when I walk out of the place.


The next day I went back in with SuperK to choose the specific model.  Chuck, the salesman, stopped us before we took a test drive and spoke to my wife: "I want to say something here.  I'm going to call this guy out before we go.  He's a man of his word.  He told me what he was going to do yesterday and that's what he did, and I appreciate that."  This was not scripted and I could tell Chuck was being honest.  I was able to say: "Thanks, I appreciate that."  


I assume that a lot of people tell him what they're going to do and then they don't do it.  Some of them probably lie outright and some of them are probably afraid, so they say whatever they want to get themselves out of an uncomfortable situation.  So instead of thinking only of myself I try to think of the other person.  How easy it would be to become jaded and defensive if you had to deal with people like that all day long.


It's a damn nice car.