We're back from a busy weekend. It ranged from the sublime to the purgatorial.
The Sublime:
We went to a beautiful Confirmation Mass for our friends' daughter, "Martha" (a blog-and-Confirmation name in one. How handy.) It was fun to whisper to Ramona during the Mass, "Look! Watch! The Holy Spirit is descending on Martha ri-i-i-ight ... now! See? The bishop's hands are on her! The Holy Spirit is here!" Ramona nodded as if, yes, she could really see this Holy Spirit Person of which I spoke; however, she pointed out to me quite matter-of-factly, she could not actually see Martha's head at that moment, nor could she see the bishop's hands on it.
But, she trusted me when I said the Holy Spirit was present, in much the same way as I trust the Holy Spirit Himself when He says He's present. I know that something supernatural, magical, and powerful is happening, and that a divine fire is being lit. When Martha's sister, our goddaughter, was confirmed, I had the same feeling of exhilaration.
Sacraments. I'm in awe of them.
Who woulda thought that a little bit of oil and the laying on of some hands could do that? Only God could think these things up.
And only humans could think up car lots, which brings us to
The purgatorial:
Honestly, I think that spending as much time at car dealerships as we spent on Saturday should shave about 13 katrillion years off my time in purgatory. Someone should tell that guy in Council Bluffs, Iowa that sprinkling pennies ("It's your lucky day!") all over the car lot is just about the cheesiest thing I've ever encountered. Ramona came away with a fistful of change but Atticus and I couldn't walk away fast enough from the guy who wouldn't hear the words "reliable" and "used" but instead insisted on phrases such as "buy new" and "finance it."
We made a break under fire and got back to the van just as we saw some other poor, elderly man (he'd actually been inside their sales office, which just might qualify him to skip purgatory and go straight to heaven) walking quickly away from a salesman who was still hounding him, following him out of the office and down the steps.
I'm pleased to report that both the nice, elderly man and the Edmisten family escaped from that dealership unscathed.
You see?
The Holy Spirit is here.
4 comments:
Wat a wonderful experience all the way around :)
From the sublime to the mundane and back again...with plenty of humor in between. This is classic Karen Edmisten! Truly, this post was a joy to read.
In general we stay away from the dealerships and go straight to the used car places. If you've lived in an area for awhile you get a feel of which ones are reputable and which ones are mostly hawking junk to people who can't afford anything with less than 100,000 miles on it. We bought both kids their first cars for under $2000 apiece and here we are several years later and both cars are still running (ds's car bought in 1999 and dd's bought in 2000). I'll admit that one kid didn't put many miles on the car, but the other did and that's the car my dh drives to work every day (except the days he's trucking hay that is). We've found a couple of really reliable used car places and we've been back when our other vehicles needed replacing. DH did have to go further afield when he replaced his truck last year, but that was only because it's getting harder and harder to find a 3/4 ton pickup with 4 wheel drive and manual transmission (essential when getting hay from a farmer with a muddy driveway on a hill).
New car dealers really prefer to sell you new cars (or rather they prefer to sell you the financing of new cars - which is where they really make their money I suspect). But the younger set around here would really recommend a Honda (even though only the fiance is currently driving one).
However, I agree that car shopping is certainly worth time off from purgatory, but so is sofa shopping, shoe shopping, mother of the bride dress shopping... Maybe I just really don't enjoy shopping (other than book shopping - given a couple of hundred dollars I could happily spend hours in a bookstore).
Arrgh! Car Shopping!
We drove all the way to Miami to check out a certain car that the dealer PROMISED was in stock (Largest selection in South Florida!) only to find that they had zero, none, nada! The man followed us out to the car, followed the car out to the road and stood there still yacking to the closed window while we waited to dash back into the madness that is Miami traffic.
We bought a used car from an individual after that.
Though the new deals are very tempting, how can Chrysler do $2.99 gas for 3 years? Awesome deal if it's true!
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