Buying a Used Car in 49 Easy Steps (con’t)

THAT ETERNAL DOTTED LINE…

34. That following Monday, take a bus to the DMV. You never got a "payoff receipt," or anything that directly proves you’re responsible for paying off the TFS account, but you have enough paperwork for the average person to reasonably connect the dots (bank statement, bill of sale, a screenshot of the paid off account, the "Authorization for Payoff"). Bring everything you can, and after paying the state a fuckton of sales tax a clerk will staple all that shit together and call it an "incomplete registration." This means the car’s not really yours, but you can legally drive it at least until the registration runs out. Then you’re buggered.
 
Take the bus back home. A nice Armenian woman will pay your fare and talk to you the entire way, and you’ll be gratified and listen to her story about coming to America and her successful children that drive expensive cars, and you’ll be happy just to be able to experience an Armenian personage that redeems your last experience with an Armenian (see steps 18 to 26), and perhaps cures you of any ethnic preconceptions you might have you racist bastard. But she’ll tell you which building she’s staying at and invite you to visit, and you won’t know which building she means or exactly where it is because her accent is thicker than a giraffe’s tongue, and you don’t really feel like it, and did she just try to buy your friendship for a buck fifty?! You’ll thank her again and do the best you can to forget the hurt look on her face as you walk out of her life.
 
35. Call up your insurance. Tell them to cancel your old insurance and start up a new one for your vehicular upgrade. They’ll change the make, model and vin and you’ll pay a little more a month even if you only insure for liability because progress is progress.
 
It’s really that simple. 
 
I know, I couldn’t believe it either.
 
36. The car is yours, sort of. Wash that bitch.
 
Fall in love with it…
 
37. Months pass. Let the car and steady work be the bright spot of your life and let everything else fall apart. Don’t write. Become numb. Grieve failed relationships. Don’t exercise. Have a metaphysical crisis. Fulfill your newfound obsession with makes and models of vehicles by knocking out the Bucket List Achievement from Forza Motorsport 4 (and then, time permitting, the Solid Gold Achievement of Forza Motorsport 3). Drown your growing anxiety that you’ll never actualize your true potential by driving around and around the same pixilated tracks ad infinitum.
 

Every single one of those tiny boxes represent somewhere between one and ten races you have to beat, each
race taking between five and twelve minutes to complete. When you "win" the achievement a wizard pops
out of the screen and offers you an opportunity to start your entire life over again. I turned him down.

Dread becoming 40, and let every spreading cluster of gray hair be a constant reminder of imminent death and immolated dreams. You’ll work every single day, at the beginning of which, a kind lady will make you an enormous, ludicrously caloric breakfast with at least three eggs in it, the yokes of which you’ll successfully convince her to take out so your arteries can remain somewhat pliable, but you’ll keep eating all those breakfasts whether you’re hungry or not and you’ll start to become a little pudgy, not to the casual observer, but whenever you’re sitting on your bed without your shirt you can’t help but notice a little something extra hanging over your waistband. As the months fly by it will eventually become increasingly obvious that you’re never going to officially own your vehicle unless you take decisive action, and this notion is complimented by a form that arrives from the DMV with strategically placed red ink telling you that IF YOU DON’T GET YOUR CAR COMPLETELY FUCKING REGISTERED BEFORE SUCH-AND-SUCH A DATE, YOU’RE GOING TO BE FINED UP THE YING-YANG AND YOU’RE BELOVED HARD-WON VEHICLE WILL BE HAULED AWAY BY THE STATE AND TURNED INTO A CUBE!
 
38. Track down the seller and find out if she ever received the title. She didn’t.
 
39. Call up Toyota Financial Services. A ringwraith will inform you that they need the seller to call them so they can send you something called a Lien Release. According to the DMV, you also need a Lien Satisfied, which they also agree to send upon the seller’s confirmation.
 
40. Contact the seller. She’ll tell you that she’s going into surgery but she’ll contact TFS and get back to you that following Monday.
 
41. It’s a week later, check in with an email.
 
42. It’s a month later, check in with another email, one that diplomatically mentions it’s taken a entire month for nothing to happen.

Is she dead… ? Nope, updating her Facebook, OMG can’t wait for the new season of Arrested Development!
 
43. Four days later. Call, email, anything, is this thing on?! What do you have to do to get people to take six goddamn minutes out of their day on your behalf?! Rule out violence, rule out empty threats… Really though, you can’t afford another three months of this bullshit. Do you have to get a lawyer?! Do you have to legally force somebody to get on their phone for six minutes and call an evil financial institution?
 
The seller finally answers, announcing her intention to get in touch with TFS, but that she’s been sooooooo busy. She’ll do her "best" to take care of it.
 
44. Her best sucks. Fuck it, call TFS back yourself. Reiterate your situation, and remind them that you have a signed "Authorization for Payoff and Title Processing," so you should be able to get whatever documents you need without further clearance from the seller. It actually works, the curse is broken, TFS officially cuts out the middle man and mails you the Lien Release (a notarized form that turns out to be completely identical to a Lien Satisfied, just another way of saying it).
 
What about the missing title? That’s your problem.
 
45. Turns out that the Application for a Duplicate or Paperless Title has a section on it that lets the seller relinquish all interest in the vehicle, and another one that let’s the DMV know that they should send the title to the new buyer. Prepare this application, along with a Vechicle/Vessel Transfer and Reassignment Form with an Odometer Disclosure Statement as meticulously as possible, and contact the seller.
 
46. She has off that following day, and she lives three miles away from you, so she inevitably asks to meet at a restaurant 20 miles away where she’ll be having lunch with her cousin. Doesn’t matter. Plug the address into your phone and start driving. Mill around the Largest Mexican Restaurant You’ve Ever Seen in Your Life with Like Fifty Rooms in It, send a confused text, find her, quick pleasantries, sign here, and here, and here and GET THE FUCK OUT!
 
47. SAME DAY, get the car to your mechanic so it can be tested for smog.
 
48. SAME DAY, you have three hours left at the DMV. Go, do it, strike while the iron is hot. At three hours, you’re cutting it close, but don’t despair. Bring reading material, stare at the enormous lines of people. Be pleasant and patient with the clerk. Nineteen more dollars and that car is YOURS. Really yours not fake yours. You’ll leave that bureaucratic establishment lighter than air. Jump for joy if you feel like it, you’ll never see most of these people again anyway.
 
49. JUST YESTERDAY you’ll get your title. It has a watermark, your address, and an aesthetically pleasing blue border, more official than a driver’s license but less official than money. It is a thing of singular beauty.
 
That car is yours, so it’s up to you to take care of it. Change the oil every 5,000 miles or five months, whichever comes first. Change the transmission fluid every 30,000 miles. Rotate the tires every six months and keep consistent vigil over tire wear and tire pressure. Wash the car at least once a month, wax it twice a year. Get two antitheft devices for your car, one on the steering wheel, one on the break pedal. Prioritize the car’s needs slightly above your own, because without it you are less than nothing, you are stranded, you are cut off from life, and happiness, and upward mobility.
 
If it’s been awhile since your last car purchase, take the time to be grateful for all the wonderful improvements this new vehicle has over its predecessor. Air conditioning… an MP3 disk player and a jack for your iPhone… good gas mileage… a car that won’t have you make that uncomfortable traipse to the back of the mechanic’s garage so he can show you whats wrong with it when you thought it just needed minor maintenance… an actual visor over the driver’s seat so you don’t have to shield the sun with your hand… a car that doesn’t go EEEERRRRRRRRRRR every time you make a turn, or pull towards the right when you remove your hands from the steering wheel… a car that doesn’t have the inner panels falling off of it… a car that doesn’t cost $800 whenever you want to pass your smog test… A car that you’re all around pleased with and can be proud to drive anywhere.
 
With a reliable car, you can do anything. Learn your lessons, take the best advice, spoil the car like a grandchild, drive carefully…
 
…and start saving up the cash and psychic energy for the next one…