We got the news yesterday from Charlie, our very honest and empathic mechanic. Maria’s Yaris, which I have obnoxiously referred to as the “Toilet Bowl” for years, was pronounced dead yesterday (Maria told me to knock it off.) The rear axle was rotted out by upstate New York snow and ice and, said Charlie, could no longer pass a state inspection, and was beyond repair.

This sent us into a momentary panic, we need some serious maintenance on our blogs, especially Maria’s, as the traffic to them mounts, and now we need a used car.  Maria didn’t even think of a new one.

This was not in the budget, nor something we anticipated. But this is life, and ten-year-old cars will die, and blogs need updating, and things change. I ribbed her about the little Yarus, but it did well by her all these years, even in the snowstorms that made me so nervous.

There is no stasis in the world, not for the rich, not for the poor. And then this strange thing happened. For the very first time in my life,  I pulled into one of those tiny used car lots that I’ve avoided like the plague. It was an impulse, some kind of change within me.

Why not?, I thought. I dreaded the in-your-face rituals of the big car dealers.

I’d heard good things about this place, people said they sold pretty nice used cars at low prices and stood behind them. The salesman was sitting in his office and I told him Maria was a minimalist when it came to cars, she wanted a nice reliable one, but didn’t need any bells and  whistles.

She was actually put off by the fact the car had four doors. Who needs that?, she sniffed.

The dealer said I should go out into the lot and look at the Hyundai Accent, a 2014 model with 93,000 miles on it It was owned by one person. He didn’t get up or ask me  any questions. Take your time, he said,  when I came back to talk to him. There was absolutely no pressure, no sales chatter, he didn’t even take my phone number.

I liked the owner of the lot and his son. They didn’t bother us when we looked at the car, they told  us to drive around in it, they were happy with our taking it to Charlie on Monday and letting him take a good look at it.

Once again, I confronted all of the prejudices and conventional wisdoms in my head, and once more, I found that I needed to open up and learn.

Whether we buy the car or not, these people seemed honest and hard-working to me. There was nothing sleazy about them. We form smug associations about things, and often for good reason, and we no longer bother to think about it or check it out.

When I asked about an older car on the lot, he shook his said, and said, no, he didn’t think I should buy it. He was still checking the car out. Not for your wife  as you describe her, he said.

That impressed me. And it was all so pleasant! When has buying a used car ever been pleasant?

If this works out, it will have been 72 hours since we learned Maria’s car was a goner, and we’ve possibly found a new car for her without going more than two miles from the farmhouse. The car lot owner told me that everyone who buys a car from his lot is local, and few of them have much money to spend on repairs.

He doesn’t want his neighbors mad at him, he would go out of  business in a flash.

Let’s  hear it for small towns and community. But we’ll see how the dickering goes, if it gets that far. I love to negotiate, but this is Maria’s car, and she has her own ideas about it. I will sit by and smile, offering silent support. She even checked out the tires.

I liked the looks of this car, it seemed like something Maria would like, but it is her car and her choice, so I told her about it and she came down to see it.

We took the test drive together. The ride was smooth and quiet, the car was clean, the finish on the outside looked brand new, suggesting it hadn’t been ridden hard and was probably garaged. The wheel had a tendency to pull to the right, which we asked Charlie to check.

Charlie told us he just bought a  car from this very same tiny car dealership and was happy with the transaction and the car. There weren’t even 20 cars on the lot.

Maria is doing her homework, checking out car fax and the Blue Book and on Monday, we’re bringing the car to Charlie for him to check it out. She grilled Charlie today about the maker and model and cars with lots of mileage.

Maria likes it, feels comfortable with it. She went online to check out the car and its mileage reports and reviews and she liked what she saw. The price is higher than we wish to pay of course, and so if she decides to get it, there will be some bargaining. We are within range. This is all up to her now, she can handle it, of course.

Wouldn’t it be astonishing if we had another car by Monday or Tuesday? I love where I live. And the new conventional wisdom is right. In a small town, you need to treat people well. If the word gets out and you don’t, you’re done. I never looked at it that way before. Buy local means something.

If Charlie likes it and everything checks out, Maria will think seriously about buying it.

We might even be able to pay cash for it, or at least most of it, and not have monthly payment. That would nice.  It is an older car with lots of mileage on it.

This so far has none of the tension and angst of going to the big city car dealership, which I have always endured. The salesman are either terrified or on powerful  steroids, they make the process uncomfortable. They are under pressure, so the customers are pressured.

I have bought so much stuff on cars that I don’t need. Maria is smarter than that.

The owner and his son were almost hilariously low key, I almost wanted them to pay more attention. So wish  us luck, I’ll keep you posted.