Drive

July 10th, 2006

I’m a people-pleaser to a fault. I don’t know where it comes from or why – maybe it means I wasn’t held enough as an infant, or maybe I’m trying to make up for some long-ago shortcoming by my parents – I wasn’t breastfed, or I felt responsible for the divorce or whatever. Ooh ooh – maybe I have memories that are deep, dark in the corners of my mind, of a long-lost uncle I could never make happy, but desperately wanted to, so that I could get packages of gummy bears like my siblings. We’ll never really know, because it’s too late! I’m a people-pleaser!

People-pleasing makes me positively useless in any sort of situation when I’m being served/assisted/negotiating for a price. I am a peon among service people. I prostrate myself in front of them and thank them a million times for their business when I forget that I’m paying them. I’m all for being polite, but I spend so much time making sure that they feel good that I can’ t even remember what I went in there for in the first place, and if, God forbid, I’m dissatisfied at all with the purchase/interaction/whatever, I usually don’t say anything, because I think it’s my fault, and then they won’t like me. The bitch bathing suit clerk in Dillard’s won’t like me and the world will end and we will all have to eat pickled celery for all of eternity.

Anyway, this lovely bit of personality flaw is exactly how I get myself in the most ridiculous of situations, like paying too much for everything from car insurance (hello, Progressive! You lie! Lie!) to walking out of the salon with a really bad haircut and saying, “No! it’s GREAT! I love it!” through my tears so that the hairdresser won’t feel bad, and then going home and hurling myself on the bed and throwing a toddler-like tantrum and drinking lots of wine and blaming myself. It’s a vicious cycle.

Anyway, few years ago, I bought, errr leased my car. I was about to start a new job, and was in beyond desperate need for a car, since A. and I were sharing one while our places of employ were mere blocks from one another, and my new job was in the ‘burbs, away from his. That situation brought all kinds of fun, including the time when he left for a business trip and left the keys with the garage guys so I could leave later. I identified the car and hopped into it happily, and cruised at least 5 miles away when I noticed an open can of Pillsbury frosting on the passenger seat with a plastic spoon resting on the side. It was halfway empty, clearly eaten by a very hungry driver on the run. A second glance around the interior revealed a giant package of Entenmann’s chocolate covered donuts with exactly one bite out of each of the donuts, and half a coffee cake strewn about the back seat.

Oh my GOD. Frosting? FROSTING? Chocolate covered donuts? Is he a closet eater? Is he afraid to eat around me? OH MY GOD! He thinks I’m fat, and is afraid of showing his true eating habits, lest I mirror them! The poor guy!

It was when I found the lipstick and the plus-sized bolero jacket in the back seat that I realized I was fully driving someone else’s car. Someone else’s black 1998 Honda Accord that was identical to ours in every way, except for the frosting and the Weight Watchers keychain (the keys were already in the car when I got into it) (and based on the contents of the car, Weight Watchers wasn’t working).

Anyway, yes, it was time for me to get a new car, for a host of terrifying, frosting-laden reasons, and instead of negotiating like a normal person, I fully went into people pleasing mode at the Honda dealer.

People. Pleasing. Customer. Car. Dealership.

These words should warm the cockles of any car salesman’s heart, and if any of you have ever or do sell cars, I can tell right now that you are just WISHING it had been you behind that desk that day. Instead, it was Patrick, a giant-eared twenty-something geek with a bad suit and teal tie. And for some reason, I vehemently, and probably rudely, refused A.’s repeated offers of help on this little mission, which left me to my own weak devices. A mistake I will never make again. So when Patrick told me they don’t mark down CRVs, and that the only way to lower my monthly payments would be to do a four-year lease with the warranty expiring at the end of the third year, my response was an enthusiastic, “That sounds WONDERFUL! Totally reasonable! Thank you! Where do I sign, honey?” Yeah, I called him honey, because I’m maternal and also, people-pleasing.

And so, we lived happily ever after, Patrick, my car and me. Patrick with his comically high commission, and me, happily walking around naked as an emperor, until my air conditioner broke and it turned out to be the compressor and the dealership I am required by lease-agreement to take it to told me it would be $1700 to fix. Did I mention my warranty expired in March? And that leaves me with 8 months on this car? That I then have to RETURN, thus spending $1700 for a mere eight more months of cool driving? Investing in a new compressor for, essentially, the next owner of the car?

There’s a reason I’m telling you this, I promise. The Internet has given me many things, and the most recent gift is a free air conditioning compressor. My brilliant and infinitely more savvy husband did some research, and it appears that the Honda CRV compressor is historically faulty, and thus, if customers make a stink, the reimburse the entire cost of parts and labor. It’s a borderline-recall situation, and if it happens to you, fight back! Fight the system! Tell Honda how you really feel!

I did. I did! I didn’t people please! I threatened to never buy another Honda, and most importantly, for them to take their offers of wondrously low finance rates and shove them! I will buy Ford! GM! Kia! PEUGEOT! I did not apologize! Okay, I apoligized once. Or twice. Or maybe, I don’t know, four times, for being pushy and also, for my faulty compressor, because if it hadn’t broken, which must be my fault as I’m in Florida, then I wouldn’t be talking to them, would I? But it doesn’t matter! I won! They are now paying the full cost of the compressor.

And so, if only one person Googles Honda CRV compressor problems and gets here and sees this and saves money, then I will have repaid but a small debt to Internet society. Honda. Compressor. CRV. Recall. Key words, Googlers. Enjoy.

*REM, from the best album they did, Automatic for the People.

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