I love cars, and I'm especially fond of fast, powerful cars. Over my driving life I've owned six-cylinders and fours, turbocharged and normally aspirated, but by far my favorite motor is the venerable V8. The last five years' labor brought two wonderful small-block rides into my garage: one the quintessential American sports car, the other a neo-retro muscle car masquerading as a family wagon.
Beyond the sheer joy of driving them, my wife and I shared our first kiss in the former and I proposed to her in the latter. I'm not ashamed to say that I have an emotional attachment to both cars -- I may burn in hell for saying so, but they're more than mere transportation.That proud impracticality ran smack into reality 18 months ago when my employer downsized. I haven't been alone in the job market since then, of course, and I've had little success either raising my own business or finding an employer who's willing to pay for 25 years of success in my field.
The simultaneous economic squeezes on our nation and on the KintlaLake household have become increasingly difficult and my options have become fewer. I was stunned at the ill-tempered phone calls I kept getting from one particular creditor -- I'm talking about five calls a day for a week. Apparently, three decades of never making a payment later than the due date earned me no slack when, for the first time in my life, I was 14 days tardy.
I went out to the garage this morning, gazed at my beloved sports car and knew what I had to do.
I chose a local dealer that specializes in that model, giving myself what I judged to be the best odds of a no-cash, no-payments deal -- getting out from under my car and into another of lesser value and greater practicality. My salesman, as it turned out, had been in precisely my financial fix a year ago, and he eventually suggested that I consider making my muscle-wagon part of the deal as well.
I was floored that he even proposed such a thing -- trading two cars for one, canceling two notes and two payments, and returning to me a modest check. As we talked during the four hours it took to patch together the odd transaction, he displayed undeniable and genuine empathy.
Empathy? In the car business? In this economy?
At one point the conversation turned to Ohio State football and longtime coach Woody Hayes, and that's when it dawned on me: He gets it. He knows. He's paying forward.
Where last night there were two cars parked in my garage, tonight there's just one -- a three-year-old mid-size SUV in remarkably pristine condition, comfortable but not fancy. While its I-6 will do absolutely nothing for my testosterone level, it'll be an able grocery-getter and spawn-hauler. Its four-wheel drive will be welcome in the winter. Hell, it might even be a worthy BOV -- we'll see.And gawd, it's white.
Mrs. KintlaLake and the spawns understand what I did today and why. They're good with it. As I close this post, I'm looking above my desk at a painting of Coach Hayes. These words appear below the image:
"There is a force that makes us all brothers. None goes his way alone. All that we send into the lives of others comes back into our own."The old coach, himself inspired by the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, was right -- we can never pay back, but we can always pay forward.
For the first time in weeks, I'll sleep well tonight.
