I Finally Remembered

The back story can be found here: And The Worst Part Was . . .

The good news was that because I have access to a company vehicle, my personal car spends most of it’s time sitting in the driveway because I do not have any personal time to drive it, but I digress.  A crisis was averted and Elissa got to motor around in a pretty nice ride.

Plans were started to identify a suitable replacement as there are other plans for my car come January and Elissa is not one to rush into anything.  One example is that just over a year ago, she dropped her iPhone, cranking the screen and then started having some other challenges with it.  We offered to get her a new one as a Christmas present, but she never got around to switching it out.  Same thing when her birthday came around…new phone?  “Yea, I’ll get over there”.   She is still using it today.  Most kids would have left the conversation and headed straight to Verizon, but not Jelly. (The story of how she got that name )

Knowing we had to make a decision, I found myself asking some probing questions and planting seeds.  She was looking at vehicles that outpaced her ability to support them and herself at the same time.   

She was looking around, doing some test drives, but so was daddy. I went to visit the owner of a dealership we had done lots of business with in the last fifteen years, both work and personal, and he wanted to sell us a car that we really didn’t want and she couldn’t afford and it appeared to me that if we didn’t buy that car, he wasn’t all that interested in selling us anything else that particular day.

So noted.

A few more days go by  and she asks about a Honda. I was surprised as that never appeared on her radar screen, nor mine.  I  knew the customer service manager at the local dealership, Honda Cars of Aiken, who was a volunteer firefighter with our department when I was still working there.

I called John Kelly and told him we were coming by that afternoon around 4pm to look at cars and who should we ask for?  He told me and said that he looked forward to seeing me later.

Elissa and I  arrived simultaneously, five minutes early, driving separately from opposite directions. “Never be late to a scheduled appointment” is a rule not to be broken. She s learning.

We were met curbside by Ed Mickley who was waiting for us.  Ed is a seasoned veteran and as likeable as one could be.   We came to learn we had a good bit in common and had skied at many of the same mountains in Northeast PA. His genuine enthusiasm was contagious.

We talked, we walked the lot, we test drove, we talked some more and at one point, I acknowledged  to myself that Jelly was drinving a new, Honda Civic home tonight. The deals were that good and every aspect of the finances were less than we  had budgeted.

Since she is only twenty five and only recently re-employed, I figured part of my responsibility was to be co-signing on this lease. (After considerations and calculations, we had decided in advance on a lease as opposed to a straight buy)

When the credit checks were run, it came back that she was actually able to do this without my assistance. Good for me, better for her, but maybe the other way around. We were both proud that she could stand on her own.

So after three hours that flew buy, she was all smiles and I had one more thing checked off my to-do list.  It was around that time that I realized that the first car I ever bought for myself was a Honda Accord 5-Speed, back when I was twenty-five and I had just helped Jelly get the first car she actually paid for, a Honda,   at the age of twenty five.  A serendipitous moment, indeed.

I would have pictures, but it was already dark,  we were hungry and we had to shuttle the extra car home.  Maybe another time. I will note however,  that I have never heard the words “Thank you” said so many times in one evening.

Ah, the simple things.

Thanks to John, Ed & Vince at Honda Cars of Aiken.