New ride

One night last month after Hazel, Turner and I went to bed, our friend Jerry came over to visit Mom and Dad.

He pulled up in an old Crown Victoria, and when Mom and Dad asked him why he had it, he told them he had bought it at a government auction. It’s a hobby of his to buy cars there, fix them, drive them for a year or so, then sell them.

He talked to them about it some more, and Mom told Dad she thought we should try to get a minivan there for our summer trip. If we didn’t like the car, we could just sell it.

Dad started researching and began coming around to the idea. He decided they’d do it, told Mom he thought they’d come home with a new car, and last Tuesday, they dropped us off with a babysitter for the day, the longest they’ve ever been away from all of us, and headed down to the auction in San Antonio.

Mom was excited but tried to tell herself it would be a fun adventure, even if they came home empty handed.

When they got there, they had to look at all the cars on their list, but they couldn’t test drive them. When they left Austin, it was pouring down rain, but when they got there, it was hot and sunny.

After looking at the cars, they went inside to the air conditioning to talk about them and eat lunch. While they were eating lunch, Jerry got up to grab something and a guy sat down in his seat. Dad almost kicked him out but then figured Jerry could sit in the extra seat at the table, and let it go. It turned out he was the auctioneer. Dad told him we wanted the car for a road trip one day.

Next up was the auction. It was crazy. Everybody went into a garage, where there was an auctioneer who talked really fast, lots of people standing around, and a guy on the floor who pointed at people who were bidding on the cars and made funny sounds and hand motions. Other people drove the cars through so people could see what they were bidding on. The cars were going for more than Mom and Dad expected and Mom started to feel a little bummed because she thought they wouldn’t get one.

Mom and Dad had narrowed it down to three cars. Dad won the first one he bid on! He was up against a dealer, but he didn’t want to lose. They were excited, and when Dad won, the auctioneer came up to him and said, “Now you can go on that road trip!”

I'm sure it was tough for Mom and Dad to be away from us all day like that.  Mom said it was a really fun date.  Dad said it was the most expensive date ever.  Mom and Dad came home very tired and said they used up all their adrenaline. We kids had a good day with the sitter, but decided that we like hanging out with Mom and Dad a lot more.

We all like the new car. It has a lot more space for all of us!