The $500 Barf

Now that the weather is cooling off, we recently began our search for a new car (so Dave doesn't have to ride his bike to work in the snow). We knew we wanted a sedan, but hoped to find one with a bit more interior space than our Mitsubishi Outlander (which can barely fit Violet's car seat).

After test driving several different cars, we preferred the Hyundai Sonata. We kept our eyes peeled for good deals on a used one, and last week we found one listed in Bountiful. After Dave got off work, we loaded up the kids and drove up to check it out. As we walked onto the lot and explained what we were looking for, we watched the Sonata driving away as someone else purchased it. Our salesman (affectionately dubbed "Snaggletooth") then attempted to sell us a KIA Optima and every other used mid-sized sedan on their lot.

On Tuesday, we found another Sonata listing that interested us (partly because of the "free iPad with a car purchase" offer), and determined to drive downtown and see the car. Deciding it would be best to not take the kids with us, we opted to drop them off with Dave's sister, Christie. As we arrived on the porch, Eddie frantically announced, "I'm going to throw up!"

Now, he had been saying this for days since he had thrown up once over the weekend. But he had shown no signs of sickness since then (besides occasionally making fake barfing sounds), so we didn't really believe him. Still, as a precautionary measure, Dave and Eddie headed for the bathroom as I explained to Christie that he was just fine. It was at this very moment that Eddie threw up in the hall next to the bathroom door. We cleaned up the mess (luckily it was tile), apologized for having to "barf and run," then got back in the car and headed straight home.

At this point, Dave and I were starting to wonder if the fates were conspiring against us. Then, the next day, we looked at the same Sonata listing on the dealer's website and were surprised to see the price had dropped $500 overnight. We loaded up the kids once more and drove downtown. Two hours later, we drove our new car away.