Stay of Execution

Lovesick

Well, so for all my claims of practicality, I, too have been hijacked by my senses and I am less convinced than ever that I'm going to be able to hold out and buy a nice boring sensible car after all. I have spent today embodying covetousness and greedy wanting. Somebody throw a bucket of ice water on me.

Afterglow Central

Here at Stay of Execution headquarters, Housemate is totally goofy over a new boy.  She's leaving burners on and losing her keys and trailing off into dreamy looks in the middle of sentences.  When he comes by the pitch of her voice rises a couple of notches and there are peals of giggles and then long and smoochy silences from the next room.  The Wonderboy is equally lovesick and sleep-deprived, from all appearances.  Meanwhile his very charismatic doggie has a thing for my dog, and there's a lot of circling and wagging and butt sniffing and licking and teasing going on.  They sleep on one another's dogbeds.  It's great for her mood, because this enormous post-operative cast has her pretty inactive and dull.  He's started spending work days here rather than at Wonderboy's place and both dogs seem happier for it.  It's all very cute. 

Meanwhile I'm going around the house finding keys, turning off burners, changing the dressing on casts, making appointments with plumbers and vets, reading How To Buy A Used Car and Getting Things Done and going to bed early.  It's a whole different kind of energy. 

Car Shopping #3

Looked at Hondas last night. I drove an Accord and it was hard to remember to pay attention to the car because it was so familiar. Except it was a stick shift, which I have missed driving. The dealership I went to is non-commission. I asked the saleswoman how she was incented and she said bonuses are keyed off the number of units sold. There was a monthly contest going on a bulletin board in the showroom -- she was winning for the month and was really proud of hereself. So I asked, "So you want to sell me a car before the end of the month, but you don't care which one you sell me or at what price?" That's correct, she says. Interesting. It seems that the salespeople and the manager rely on the good-cop bad-cop routine a little bit, where the salesperson wants to sell you the car to get his or her notch on the bulletin board and the manager's the one who says, well, nope, sorry, can't go any lower in price. I guess they all do that. She did like to talk, this saleslady, and in addition to hearing about her daughter's diamond ring and her own back troubles and the job she used to have operating a cherry-picker and her one-eyed dog (we have that in common, my dog also has one eye) I learned some things about commission dealerships. At the end of the month, the managers will sell the salespeople down the river, she says, and mark a car way way down, eating up the commission, to move the vehicle. "I would never work at a place like that," she said. Interesting. I might want to buy my car from such a place.

I have my own Blue Book, which is very useful because I notice that I do tend to believe the salespeople when they say, "This car is a really good deal." It gets me all anxious and worried that someone else will buy the car even if I haven't yet decided that I want the car. And gets me feeling all smart and smug, like, wow, I'm going to get a great deal, I'm so shrewd. And then I pull out my bluebook when the salesman's gone and think, well, it's an ok deal, but it's not a great deal. I should probably have bought the NADA book instead of the bluebook but who really knows. Also I have been doing a lot of shopping on Autotrader.com, and I have a nice little Excel spreadsheet of the makes and models and mileage of the cars I've seen and their comparables out there. It reassures me first that there are PLENTY of good cars around in my price range, and second that, when I am very close to ready to buy a particular car I'll be able to pull out the spreadsheet and show the dealer a very similar car that's listed for $1000 less and ask him why he can't start negotiations at that price.

Tomorrow I have a board meeting outside of Boston and I think I'll hit a couple of the Massachusetts dealers I've seen on Autotrader on the way home. The fun never stops.

Crest and Plaid Committee

I was talking to one of the partners here, who mentioned that another law firm in town has recently developed its own crest, as in a coat-of-arms kind of logo. We were laughing about the silliness of that. He decided that now, in addition to being in charge of the firm's website, I would be the new chair of the Crest Committee, in charge of developing our firm's crest. I suggested that I could also work on getting us a tartan plaid as well. He approved. Now that's job security. Head of the Crest and Plaid Committee. My time to shine.

Fine With Me

I don't care that the used Passat I drove by last night sold today. Not a bit. Because I'm going to buy a more practical, sensible car, a nice little Toyota Corolla or maybe a Camry or a Nissan Altima or a good old Honda. Haven't got my heart set on a Passat with heated leather seats at all. I'm a practical gal, and I make good decisions about these things. I'm not even looking at Passats. Except if I drive by them while looking for other cars. Or if they happen to be in the lot and I have to walk past them on my way to a nice reliable sensible vehicle. And even then I hardly notice them. It probably had lots of miles. Would have been a real headache. Nope. I don't care. I'm glad, really. If I weren't so indifferent I guess I'd be glad.

Crystal Ball

Today we had our annual benefits meeting with our firm's benefits guy. Having no spouse and no dependents makes life pretty easy for me at these things. My only decision is how much I want to put away in a medical spending account for things like co-pays and deductibles and quasi-medical expenses like eyeglasses etc. It's a sensible thing to do but you don't want to set aside too much because whatever you don't use in a particular year is gone forever -- you don't get it back. Projecting forward I think, "I'm not going to get sick this year, I never get sick." But I can be pretty sure I'll drop a pair of glasses overboard or lose one or something, and pretty sure I'll go to the doctor's at least once for my annual exam and maybe to the dermatologist to check out a blotchy mole or something else of mild concern. So it's worth having something in the account. This year I just had to figure out how to clean out the last $195 from the account before it expired so I'm modifying downward.

Someone asked the benefits guy about 401(k) loans, a matter of some interest to me as I consider my various financing options for this car purchase. He said, they're a lousy choice because you get taxed twice on the money. The Big Guy disagreed, saying that would always be the case when you take a loan and its better to pay interest to yourself than to someone else, and pretty soon this benefits guy was debating four or five lawyers about whether it was or wasn't a good decision and what considerations were relevant to determining whether it was. The benefits guy was pretty good humored about the whole thing but the rest of us around the table had to start making fun of all of them to get them to agree to disagree and get the meeting back on track.

Upstaged

Both my mom and my dad have been up to some tricks, and now have beautiful banners at the top of their weblogs that look like scenes of Penobscot Bay, the prettiest place in the world to sail.

Car Shopping # 2

Went to three dealerships after work tonight and immediately started breaking the rules that I'd set for myself after reading my "How To Buy A Car" book (e.g. don't say much to the salesman, don't mention numbers first, etc.). But I got better at the schtick at each dealership and drove a couple of cars, and I learned some things, which was what I was after. I deliberately went to "practice" dealerships where I didn't really expect to see the car I'm going to buy so that if I slipped up it wouldn't matter so much. I'll probably go back to one of the places on Saturday, though, as one of the salesman seemed pretty reasonable and I didn't show him all my cards and there are some cars there that might do that I have yet to drive.

I learned that if I wanted to shut a salesman up when he tried to deflect the conversation away from the price of the car and talk about financing payments instead it was very effective to look him in the eye, tell him I'm a bankruptcy lawyer and understand credit and that we could talk about financing the purchase after we'd arrived at a price.

I think after I practice at this a little more I'm going to enjoy the negotiation part of the transaction rather than thinking of it as a hassle as I do now.

Imaginary Contest

I just need to confess that I have a blog crush on this guy. He's funny as can be and in Austin, Texas besides, my favorite city that's not Portland. When I win the blogosphere's contest of an all-expenses-paid-trip to go on a date with the blogger of my choice, I'll be on the plane in a minute ready to take this guy down to the Horseshoe Lounge or the Saxon Pub or the Continental Club and buy him all the Lone Stars he can drink and listen to some of the great music that's everywhere in Austin and laugh.

Runners up are the thoughtful and complicated TPB (crippled in this imaginary contest by his location in New Jersey) and the mysterious pjm, an occasional commenter here who just began his own blog, Flashes of Panic, which has both an intriguing name and a picture this girl can't resist.

Question For Practitioners

I'm always surprised when I call another attorney's office and nobody asks who I am before transferring me right to the attorney's extension. It is so useful for me to know who it is who's calling before I get on the phone. Mostly I take the call (although I'll confess to ducking from opposing counsel or a particularly demanding client from time to time) but sometimes I have to call them back or let it go to voicemail, either so I can be prepared with the right stuff in front of me when I return the call or because what I'm wrapped up in is more important than what's trying to come in by phone and if I switch gears in the middle there will be this inevitable delay when I start back up again and try to figure out where I was and what I was doing when I got interrupted. You guys who don't screen calls -- how do you do it? And why?