Did I Miss Anything?

As you can tell, I’ve been a bit quiet this past weekend.  While I was able to post a nice report on young goalie prospect Jacob Markstrom of the Florida Panthers, I was a bit involved with some car shopping the past few days for myself.  And a neighbor as well over the past couple weekends.  As the image shows, my feeling is that the whole buying/leasing a car bit has changed dramatically over the past few years.  Or at least since I was in my 20’s, which was a long time ago.

Although, there still are some dealers that you can go to and you’ll still have to deal with the plaid suit image, and the old sales tactics.  For example while doing this with a neighbor a couple weeks ago, which only warmed me up for my personal experience, we went to one dealer who’s name shall be withheld, but just know that the car is manufactured in Japan.  The salesman was nice enough, but thought he was kind of cute with his little remarks.  His most memorable one was. “Whatever Lola wants, Lola gets”.  Ah, Lola was not the name of my friend, or anyone in our little gathering.  Needless to say, we left.  Next we went to a little place where the cars are made in South Korea.  Nice enough guys and well spoken and knowledgeable.  Things seemed to be going well, until, the sentence we we’re waiting for came out.  “What can I do do put you in the car today”? Nothing.  We said we weren’t buying today at the beginning.

A week later we strolled into a well known dealer and met the “gum chewer”.  And he drags his feet on top of it.  At one point he had his gum hanging from his lip.  Very professional right?  Well, the exact car that my neighbor wanted was not at the dealer, but in transit.  Mr Gum Chewer made an incredible offer that was good for today only.  Why was the offer so good?  The car wasn’t at the dealer and he knew we weren’t buying today.  His mistake however turned into our good fortune.  The next dealer matched the price for my neighbor just a few hours later as he didn’t want to lose the sale.  He’d rather sell the car, and hope that we refer more business.  Good man.

As for me, I’ve been leasing from the same guy for quite sometime.  Boring? Maybe.  But not the car(s) that’s for sure.  I’m enamored with German engineering.  They know how to make cars.  No problems ever.  And the experience is actually fun.  We get along great, I’ve brought him other business, and nine times out of ten, if I take you to go see him, you’re most likely going home with car that day.  Not cause he sold you, but because you like the car, you like him, and you’ll love the price.  No haggling.  No calling in the manager.  Never have I heard, what do I have to do to make this deal today! You’ll be treated like a human, and actually think the whole experience was a dream.  Believe me!

So, that’s what’s kind of tied me up for the past couple days.  As the high school junior of the house says, “This car smells delicious”.  As my business partner says, “It’s sleek”.  So I now have a sleekly delicious new car.  What does this have to do with hockey, or negotiating with free agents?  Nothing.  Just another day or two in the life of The Rat Trick.

There’s no news to report anyway is there?

I hope you’ve never had to deal with this:

Thanks for reading.

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Cheers