the ballad of the back seat bandit.

he stood six feet three inches tall. but he was no giant. he greeted us at the door with his crooked smile and matching demeanor, and i braced myself for its inevitable unpleasant impact.

a wasteland surrounded him, filled with shiny metal objects glistening from the flourescent lighting that hung above. metallic facades that masked unknown history, hidden universes of knowledge, uncovered only by those brave enough to journey down that road of previously charted, yet unknown, territory.

not knowing quite how i got there, i found myself in one of my least favorite places in the world, about to go on a ride with the back seat bandit.

"what can i do for you today? what car are you looking at today? what can we interest you in? what brought you in today?" starting to rethink our decision to even be there, we reluctantly pointed at the one that caught our eye. "what a great choice. great choice. built like a tank. fine choice in a used vehicle."

oh. there it is. the key word. USED.

"go ahead young lady, sit on in that thing. go on. open up that glove box - you could fit a miata in there!" his excitement was unecessarily overwhelming and overbearingly anti-climatic. i am most certainly basing a large decision involving lots of money on the suggestion that i can fit a car in the glove box.

we took a test drive. i have no idea why.

"the car is running really rough, do you know what that is?" the bandit replies from the back seat. "oh, that's nothing, it will go away in a few minutes." it never went away. we all just ignored it and sat in awkard, knowing silence. acknowledging it would be a losing battle anyway when you're up against the bandit.

we hadn't even pulled the car back into the lot when it happened. "so, what can i do to earn your business and sell you this car tonight?" there it was. no candy coat, no hidden messages. he just laid it out there for all to see, like an overweight woman flopping down on her pool chair at a nudist resort.

the bandit quoted us a price that was two thousand dollars more than we had been quoted previously. i was so excited to whip my checkbook out and buy that astronomically priced car that ran like a overused horse. i could hardly contain myself.

as if i had to tell you, we ran out of that place so fast, in hopes that the swiftness would leave behind all the grease and scarring memories.

the ballad of the backseat bandit. coming soon to a used car dealership near you.