Bad Liars, Good Liars,

 

We've started car shopping. So far we have taken one ride with a car salesman.

We asked him, what is this button as we pointed to a button that had some sort of Egyptian icon on it. He didn't know so he took out his cell phone camera and took a picture. That didn't help. We still don't know what that button did / does.

As it turns out that should have been a sign. An Omen. Something to pay heed to.

But I digress, if that is possible before you even get started.

I know some good liars. They were once personal friends. If there were an Olympics for Liars they would win. For sure. Hands down. No question. 

I'm guessing that as all the Olympic lairs were practicing for their events these liars I know would walk in and they would simply close down the competition and hand them the medals. They are good. Really good. Peerless.

This used car salesman we took a ride with was not a good liar. Rule numero uno of lying is to remember the lie. I'm guessing that would be rule number one. However it may give way to the other really good lie technique wherein you have a sliver of truth in the lie and that makes you like hard to refute. But for now let's just agree that numero uno is "remember the lie".

This car salesman needed to go back to car sell lying school. He told us the car we liked was a demonstrator. It was used by one of the higher up "muckety-mucks" at the dealership and that's why it had so few miles on it. Later in our adventure with him he told us that the car had been returned after a lease had expired on it. We asked for and received a "CarFax" on the vehicle and in it was the information that they had purchased it at auction.

None of this upset Pam or I. He was a really nice younger man and he was entertaining so we just "rolled with it", knowing nothing he said made a "hill of beans" difference to our car buying or anything else.

However on the ranking of "World's Best Liar", he would not make the cut to compete at the regional level, that much less hope to make it to the national stage. He is doomed to be a local level liar and that is sad. Maybe.

Then we asked about the price. On the window was a gigantic sticker in yellow that said $33,000. That is a lot of money. The prices of everything have ballooned and we old people can't keep up with the fast advancement of prices. I still go into McDonald's hoping to see the "Dollar Menu". It's a fantasy now. Gone like the unicorn. The Tyrannosaurus. The Dodo bird. My hair.

He told us they did "invoice pricing". Which was confusing. By now he had convinced himself that he was dazzling us with his verbal slight of hand, (or slight of tongue) so he was embolden to just say whatever he darn well pleased. Upon hearing "invoice pricing" I asked whom invoiced you? If it is a used car how do you have an invoice.

He became pentecostal. The words flew out like the fat lady at the revival who was being freed from her demon. Words and more words that were all English but were what has come to be known in the age of Kamala Harris as a "word salad".

So we abandon that question... until... we got home and I found on the internet the same care on the same dealership lot with a price of $30,000.

The next day our friend called to ask us if we were still interested in this car. I asked him what the price was since we had encountered two. He said they did "market pricing". (No I don't know what happened to invoice pricing.)

Of course I asked what that was and I got another word salad, but my "take away" was it was like when you go to a really fancy restaurant and you want to order the "sea bass squid octopus fish" it is listed as "market price" which means that you have the waiter tell you what the price of the fish was right that very minute. Probably because this tiny restaurant in Nowheresville Indiana has a jet airplane standing by to fly that fish in to them and they will quote the price as the plane lifts off and after they cook it in the microwave you will get it at whateveritis the price is. You know, the "market price".

So if you are going to lie try to remember you lies and stick with them. This will require to make your lie a good one because there won't be do-overs. And as mentioned above sprinkle a hint of truth on the lie.

And if you want help with buying a car we can tell you where not to go. And I ain't lie'n.

Update...

Before this post was published I had an automated message from AutoTrader saying the car in question had sold. 

Then this morning the salesman from the dealership called and asked if we were still interested in the car. I told him it had sold. Long silence. "Hello you still there?"

"Yeah, I'm checking"... "That car sold".