They leave them unlocked?

DH & a co-worker, T, went at looked at cars Friday. T is in the market for a new car. He gets a new one every 2-3 years. He said he thinks that after putting 50,000 miles on a car it is time to trade it in. T asked DH what our number was for getting a new car. DH told T he was driving a 14 year old truck with 250,000 miles on it and my car is a 2001 with 140,000 miles on it. Generally we figure 3 years after paying the car off is a good time to consider getting a new one, assuming it is having mechanical problems. If it’s running fine there is no need to replace it.

We passed the 3 year paid off mark 3 years ago on my car and it’s not running well right now.

DH was sparked by this conversation so we decided to look at cars Saturday after dinner (to better avoid car salesmen). The plan was to drive around the 3 used car lots in town and see what was on offer in our price range to give me a feel for what is out there so that Monday I could stop by alone & check them out (alone because I have no income & therefore cannot be prodded into buying anything)

I knew in 2001 I wanted a PT Cruiser. I special ordered mine when they were just coming out & were on back order.  This time I have no clear idea except some more space for luggage might be nice.

We pulled into the Ford, Toyota, Mazda, Chevy, Kia, Honda, Subaru, Dodge, Chrysler dealership and cruised the rows along with 3 or 4 other people (Saturday night is a wild night in our town, you can tell). At some point we parked and walked around, brushing layers of pollen off the cars to see the pricing & mileage off the cars (it’s allergy season, it only takes about an hour to cover a car).

The boys are running around, climbing in the back of trucks and coming over to see what we are looking at & being their high energy selves. I see 4 or 5 cars I like (a CRV, a Prius, a Corolla and another Honda of some type) and say I should come back on Monday and see if the salesman would let me set up some of my pop up baskets in the back so I can gauge trunk space. Havoc reaches over and opens the door on a Subaru!

DH and I look at each other in shock. They leave them unlocked? Or is it just this one? Should we lock it?

Maybe after we sit in it to test the space…

We found the next car was unlocked, and the next! So we look in them and then move to the next row. We look in the Explorer and in a Mountaineer and the we open the side door of a mini van

THE CAR ALARM GOES OFF!!!

Holy crap! That’s right! We’re NOT supposed to be opening these unlocked cars are we?

The four of us dash rapidly to another part of the car lot as another couple with a child enters the area and we look around like “What? What’s that noise? Where is it coming from? How did that happen? Who did that?”

Fortunately car alarms shut themselves off or it would still have been going off Monday morning.