The Wrong Car

We are having dramas.

While there are a lot of big decisions Travis and I can make while living on two continents, discussing merits of new couches, TVs, even houses and school districts, etc over Skype, there are two things I can't decide and buy without him physically being here. 1) hard backed chairs 2) a car. For those items he's just got to be here in person so we can make sure his lanky, well over 6' frame will fit.

So, I did months of research, went to a timely autoshow in Phoenix over Thanksgiving and sat in what seemed like every reasonable vehicle there, made a spreadsheet, and narrowed the field. Upon his arrival in Denver all we had to do was test drive, agree we both liked it, and make sure he fit comfortably (a big vehicle doesn't always mean he'll fit, he fits in my little sports car but you can't cram him in a Hummer with a spatula).

So we picked our vehicle and decided on the features that are the most important to us. It turns out these features are pretty unique, and not part of the standard packages dealers have on their lots. We hemmed and hawed, and sat down to talk with our moms who have been kindly loaning their cars to us. We're currently a one car family, except when Travis' mom is out gallivanting the globe and leaves her car here for minding. My car, which is the aforementioned sporty car, doesn't go in the snow, so it's been living at my mom's house and she's loaned us her four wheel drive (our 1 car right now) during this unusually snowy winter.

Both moms, in that motherly way, assured us that we should go ahead and keep borrowing the car(s) for another 6-8 weeks while we ordered and waited for the delivery of our custom built car, with exactly the options we wanted on it. Keep in mind I'd already BEEN borrowing my mom's car since the first big snowstorm in October! Travis' mom left her car here for three weeks in Dec/Jan while she was away and now has left it again for three weeks while she's gone again.

We wait...and wait...and wait. The car manufacturing plant shuts down for two weeks at Christmas....

Then we get word the car is on it's way, hooray! I tell my mom her car will return soon! Our car broker, Debi, arranges her man to come in on his day off to put the clear bra on. She tells us we can come on Saturday afternoon to pick it up. We're thrilled. Travis and I show up at the dealer with a bounce in our step, Debi takes us out to look at our new car, she hands me the keys. It's shiny, it's red, it's just like we wanted. I climb in, breathe in that great smell, look up at the sunroof FFM and I really wanted, Travis and I sit in the comfy front seats and then peer into the back....

The rear seats are all wrong.

We'd ordered a bench seat and they'd installed captain chairs.

Ugh.

This was the whole big deal from the very beginning, The sunroof/bench seat combo was the hard one to find. The sunroof/captain chair combo is sitting on a car lot somewhere and could have been shipped in, we could have had it two months ago. Debi's annoyed. She calls the guy at the dealership who placed the order (who is at home on his day off) hoping that maybe they just sent over the wrong car. There is silence at his end of the phone. He realized he made a mistake and ordered the wrong car.

Ugh. Ugh. UGH!

Word for now is that we'll probably have to wait another 6-8 weeks. We discussed just taking the car that's here, but we'll have this car for a long time and I'm a bit of a car geek. I want the RIGHT car. I don't want to be annoyed by some dumb BIG mistake in our car for the next 5, 7, 10 years. We'll know for sure on Monday if there's not someway to put a rush on it.