One of the ways I was enticed into coming to Dallas – aside from the jo of knowing that the Giants christened the new Dallas stadium – was that Betsy offered to buy me a car. Not just any car, either. I wanted a Challenger. It’s not my dream car (that would be a ’70 Boss 302), but I’d take either the ’70 Challenger or the new one. It was a pipedream, I knew – Betsy likes high-end luxury cars – but it was a nice thought anyway to imagine the rumble of my big Dodge engine tumbling down the sunlit Dallas streets.
Car shopping in Dallas was an interesting day. While we were expecting a slew of Swift Herberts to waste our time while we potentially wasted theirs, we were mostly pleasantly surprised. The first place we went to, we were greeted by Dick. Dick spent a good while trying to play to Betsy’s penchant towards luxury cars. He played the “appease the woman” card all he could, just barely letting us off the lot after almost two hours and a test drive in a nice pre-owned Mercedes coupe. As we were leaving, another couple were looking at the same Mercedes, leaving Dick to insist that we come back soon. He called while we were on our way to the next lot. Of course, having no car, we had cabbed it to the lot and were walking to the next one, a fact that caused Dick and his assistant to laugh heartily.
The next stop was at a beautiful dealership. Seriously, who knew that a car lot could be so nice. This place had marble floors, dark wood, a lounge with drinks and coffee and, most importantly, flatscreens with college football on. Oddly enough, the lounge was occupied by at least four or five men who did not appear to work at the dealership, nor did they appear to be car shopping. It’s one thing if we were at a department store and the men were watching TV while their wives shopped (“Psst! Over here, in Petites”), but this was a car dealership. I would have thought that the guys would have been at least mildly interested in the vehicles, not least of all because even if their wives were shopping, they’d like to know before she dropped upwards of $60K on a Merc.
Anyway, much like this next thing, maybe it’s a Texas thing. We were greeted and helped by Monty who took us to his office to chat. He offered us water, which we accepted. He said, “Well, help yourself,” and pointed to the lounge area. Very nice. Then, “we’ve gone green so we’ve got styrofoam cups.” I laughed. Seriously, I thought he was joking. I know you can recycle here in Texas, but I see very few blue cans. In fact, our building has just a few and they are hidden away in the garage. Monty meant, I guess, that they’d gotten rid of plastic bottles. Baby steps, though I’m not sure which way they’re walking.
We ended up not getting a car, but while waiting for a taxi to pick us up and drive us home, a mint condition ’67 Mustang, the color of a styrofoam cup, rolled into the parking lot. That made my day worthwhile, despite having been told all day how great an ’01 Lexus was, and how 100,000 miles
on an Acura was “practically nothing. If only they still made them like they used to, I’d have easily walked away with at least a couple.
