Day 29 (October 5, 2009)

Please warn car salesmen for me. Their livelihoods depend on it.

I seem to be able to pick them. See, the first care I ever drove (in 1995) was an Oldsmobile. It was the first brand new car that I remember my mom and dad buying. As a teenager who couldn't yet drive it was a thrill to go with them a few months earlier to Cliff Anchutz Chevrolet-Olds-Nissan and shop for a brand new car.

It was blue. It was beautiful. It was fun to drive (not that I had anything to compare it to). And it was brand new.

(Of course, for a 15 year old, it had the most important thing of all ---- a 4 speaker electronically tuned am/fm stereo. The '78ish Chevy Caprice it replaced had a single speaker am dial-tuned radio. I was in love.)

Another car of mine was a 1997 Plymouth Voyager minivan. Bryce was almost a year old and the little Saturn we'd bought was broken beyond repair. It was a BASIC model (except for the stereo and cruise control) in purple. It made me feel like a responsible dad.

It was also the vehicle I used when feeding the homeless in Houston and for hauling things to and from Airline Drive for the Solid Rock Cafe.

In Baltimore I we bought a '99 Metro for Vonceil to drive around town. It was right when Geo was being converted into Chevrolet.

Just over three years ago we bought a green 2006 Saturn ION. So far it's been a great car for us.

Oldsmobile? Gone. Plymouth? Gone. Geo? Gone. Saturn? Gone. I feel like I'm bearing part of the weight of the nation's unemployment rate based on the men who sold me cars and are now out of work.

Now, I've owned used cars (Chevy and Suzuki) and some new cars (Honda and Dodge) that continue to call salesmen to inflate giant blue gorillas on the roofs of their dealerships. Still, the odds aren't too hot for me right now in terms of brand loyalty.

Perhaps I should look for work with Ford. I've never owned one. They could get me to buy cars from other manufacturers to weed out the competition. Maybe I'll send them my resume. I could list some Oldsmobile, Plymouth, Geo, and Saturn salesmen as character references.

Thanks for reading.

Jeff