A brand new car.

Another Saturday at the car dealership. It was interesting, I haven't negotiated with a car salesman in so long, I'd totally forgotten what it's like. The friendly-yet-adversarial push and pull of offers and counteroffers. It's a play in which we both know yet don't acknowledge our roles and prescribed actions, his "let me run this by my sales manager" bullshit, my I-don't-really-need-to-get-this-particular-car even though my hands twitch greedily at the mere thought of my beautiful new Acura RSX-S with Bose dashmounted 6-CD changer + subwoofer. The steps really have to be followed; his price wasn't coming down any further, there were these uncomfortable pauses, and I'm thinking "That's a little weird, he should definitely be offering lower than that". Then I realized *duh* I hadn't done the put-my-papers-away-and-get-up-to-leave move. It's like some sort of exchange of passwords, we couldn't proceed until I'd actually closed my notebook and gotten out of my chair with a polite yet mildly annoyed look on my face. Once I'd done that, the sales guy knew he could proceed to his next part, the run-the-numbers-past-his-manager "one last time , I dunno if he'll go for it...you sure you can't give me a little more to work with?" blah blah blah. Sure, buddy, you go do that. Take your time, I brought a book.

So anyway, I got my car, for what the Internet says is a quite good price, I pick it up next Saturday. It's black. With black interior. My car will be a dark pit of darkness. Black as night, black as pitch, black as perforated black leather upholstery with titanium accent gearshift knob and instrument cluster. Cackle cackle.