The Escape

Throughout our marriage, there was nothing more painful for Mark and I to do than to buy a car. We’d shell out thousands of dollars year after year for repairs on cars that needed to be replaced because the alternative was TOO MUCH. We’d think about it, talk about it, complain, ignore, and when the time came would breathe slowly into brown paper sacks and finally take the leap. Most of our cars were Fords as Mark’s dad worked for them for decades which allowed us a Friends & Family discount. You would think that would have made the whole process easier but for us it never really did.

When the kids were younger we had a mini van that started racking up the miles and would cost $800 in repairs every time we took it in. Finally, the doomsday clock on this junker rang too loudly for us to avoid and we knew we had to replace it. At the time hybrids were rather new, and after doing some research we knew we wanted a Ford Escape. Even that took months to decide, but when the van started making another weird noise we resentfully took the day off work and went car shopping. That day happened to be Election Day in 2006, a day full of hope and change as we cast our vote and then drove to the dreaded dealership to sell our bleeding liberal hearts in exchange for a new car.

There weren’t many hybrids available yet but the first place we went to had a silver one that we drove around town while the salesman pointed out the features. Mark loved being able to watch the screen to see when it was using the battery versus the engine – a techy option that he was enamored with while I fell hard for those heated leather seats. When we got back to the dealership, Mark, who believed all shopping was a reconn mission where you get in and out quickly before the enemy even knows you’re there, was ready to close the deal. All of it was happening too fast for me. Were we really going to pay $30K for a car? I pulled Mark aside and said I was teetering on a ledge of panic and we needed to go to lunch and talk this over. That sort of thing with me always drove Mark nuts. If we both agreed that we needed to buy a car, we agreed to a date to buy a car, and they had the car we wanted, what was the hold up? The hold up was always my head that thought the emergency brake was to be used for e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g.

Over lunch Mark calmed me down, told me we couldn’t keep sinking money into the van, that this car would save us on gas, and that it was past time to get something more reliable. I knew he was right and we went back to the dealer where they encouraged us to take it home for a few hours. We picked up the kids from school, took it on the highway, thought it over some more, and then took it back to the dealership where our salesman said, “I can already tell you’re in love, aren’t you,” which was some kind of over reach because we weren’t exactly car loving people. We all sat down at a table in the showroom where the negotiations started. The first great deal they thought we’d love had a payment that was more than our monthly mortgage and I laughed. The salesman said, “Oh, I thought you wanted a two year loan. You need longer? No problem. Let me run this by my manager,” and off he went. I said to Mark, “You know that’s how they hook you, right? They come out with a ridiculous payment so they keep extending the months until they’ve beaten you down and you agree.” Mark leaned over and whispered, “I think this is the part where we’ve become unwitting participants in a hostage situation,” and I nodded and kept my eye on the exit signs.

Junior Salesman bounced out of the manager’s office again with another deal and I shook my head. “No?” he asked incredulously, “you need something a little less?” Fun Fact: We’re at a Ford dealership trading in a twelve year old mini van that barely got us here. In case it wasn’t obvious we are the Leadership Team of The Less People. He went back again to talk to his manager to get us an even better deal. I looked at Mark and said,”What do you suppose they’re really talking about every time he goes into the manager’s office?” “I’m going to go out on a limb here,” he said, “and say they’re talking about hosing us.”

After a lot of back and forth and an in-person meeting with the concerned manager because we really want to put you in this car we came up with a deal. “Well congratulations, you guys!! This is great and you know what that means,” the salesman said excitedly. We thought it meant that you get the kind of debt that makes you want to puke but he said, “Every time somebody buys a car here they get to ring the Showroom Gong.” The Showroom Gong? Mark leaned over to me and said, “I hate these people and I am not getting up and ringing some fucking gong,” so I got up and rang the gong like a big dork. The salesman said, “Oh you can ring it harder than that,” and I smiled and declined because it turned out that I’d reached my limit with all of these people.

Hours after this marathon started we finally had a car but were we really done? No we weren’t. We needed to talk to someone about undercoating and so a very attractive, British woman had us come into her office. She explained how undercoating works, the benefits of this option, and the price. We were wary and so she said it looked like we were the kind of people who needed a demonstration. She reached into her desk drawer and brought out two rusty, metal pie tins, one with undercoating and one without and was sure we’d be able to tell the difference right away. She knocked on the bottom of one tin and then the other. “Undercoating, no undercoating.” Knock knock knock. “Can you hear the difference?” By then we were like two high-schoolers in the last hour of all-day detention and about to slide out of the chairs and onto the floor. “Actually, I can’t,” I said, “can you do it again?” So she knocked knocked knocked on one pie tin and knocked knocked knocked on the other. “Undercoating, no undercoating.” I listened harder this time and looked at Mark for input but he was lifeless from boredom. “Can you do it one more time?” So she knocked knocked knocked on one pie tin and then knocked knocked knocked on the other and I said, “I’m not hearing it,” and leaned in across her desk. With another knock knock knock on the pie tins, Mark threw his hands in the air and said, “Just give us the undercoating so we can go home.” She smiled and said, “Folks, you won’t regret this decision,” and I thought we probably would but we signed the papers anyways and waited in the showroom to talk to somebody else.

As we were sitting there, Mark looked around and said, “How much do you think this place is worth?” Before I could answer he said, “Millions and millions and millions of dollars. There’s the building and the new cars in the showroom, a lot full of new cars, a lot full of used cars, equipment and tools in the service and body shop. This place is worth millions of dollars, so why do you think they’d spend all this money on this place and then pull out those ratty-ass, rusty pie plates and knock on them? Those things are what you throw away after your grandma dies and you’re cleaning out her house. Wouldn’t you think they could have used something better?” Then he started imitating the women knock knock knocking on one pie tin and knock knock knocking on the other and I started laughing and he started laughing and we could not stop. Our salesman came by to check on us and said, “I wish all of my customers were this happy buying a new car,” which made us laugh even harder. “Oh my god, Mark, we totally fell for the pie tin trick,” I said, “and as if that wasn’t bad enough we just financed it for five years so it probably will end up costing us ten grand,” which was so hilarious to us at that point that we were crying. In the midst of our party of two, we got summoned to the Finance & Insurance Manager’s office. I told Mark I had this one.

When Mark was in graduate school I worked at a bank. My first job there was to take finance deals over the phone from area dealerships. I knew that when a customer financed life insurance through the dealership it was almost always pure profit. It was also an easy sell, unnecessary for most people, and very lucrative for the finance manager so this F & I guy had met his match. He explained the financing details through Ford with a whopping $1000 rebate and then went on to the life insurance. “This is when it gets hard, folks,” he said, “because now we have to talk about if one of you dies and you still have a balance on your loan. What would you do? How would you be able to pay this off with only having one income.” “Oh, it’s not so hard for us,” I said. “We don’t want it.” He looked concerned and said, “Nobody thinks they want it and then the unexpected happens.” Mark shot me a glance. I shot one back saying I got this dude. “Here’s the thing,” I said, “we’ve got life insurance, we have savings, we have investments. We could pay this car off if we had to, and I bet your next trick is to tell us that this is only $1.99 a day and how could we not protect ourselves for the cost of a hot dog at QuikTrip. Am I right?” The F & I guy suddenly didn’t like me and looked to Mark for some mano-to-mano back up. Mark looked at him, shrugged his shoulders and said to me, “Atta girl, let’s get out of this place.”

We took many trips in that Escape and had thousands of conversations, deep ones about life and love and death, and mundane ones about when to stop for gas and where to eat. We saw cows and eagles, hawks, deer, and even a bear cub running in front of us when we were driving out of Glacier. We had a whole life in that car. After Mark died and I became the sole driver, the car took on so much more meaning to me. I could transport myself back to all those road trips and conversations, and many times I thought that at the very least I still had that car where we spent so many hours together.

Last month I took the car in for some routine stuff and was told that the underneath of it (the undercoated underneath) near the rear axles is rusting and to fix it would cost more than the car is worth. I wasn’t expecting that news and it flattened me for many days. Not the car, I thought, not that too.

Yes that, too, and life has knocked on my door to claim something else. If Mark were here he’d say, “It’s just a car, Kath, let it go,” but I’ve had to let a lot go and this one has tipped the Unfairness Scale. Since I got the news about the Escape I’ve looked at a few cars and am test driving one this week. Like every time before, I’d rather be spending my money on something else with someone else, namely a road trip with my husband. But he’s gone and won’t be in the showroom with me to make fun of some lady knock knock knocking on rusty pie tins or cheering me on when I shut down the finance manager.

I’ll find something that will work and for months it will have that new car smell, but it could never compare to the smell of Mark Fisher’s neck, where I loved to bury my face, take a deep breath, and pretend that all of him would last forever.