Kit Kat Gets a New Car

I got a text from the car dealership today. Kit Kat's car had made it from North Carolina to our local store. This was two weeks earlier than predicted. So at lunch, Kit Kat and I swung by the dealership. They let us take the car for a test drive by ourselves.

Kit Kat boosted the A/C. She hit the gas, and the car was responsive. We stayed on the main strip, as local highways were all jammed with traffic. Kit Kat drove all the way through our town and made a U-turn at Arbys.

The car appeared to have only 343 miles. It was a 2022 model. So it was essentially a new car. Kit Kat tested the heater too. Everything seemed in order. I asked the sales guy what the monthly payment would be for a 5 year loan if we put half down. He said it would be around $250. Woot.

 Kit Kat electronically signed a lot of papers. Then we went into the "signing room" to physically sign some more papers. Then our sales guy led us out to the garage where the car had a large yellow bow on it. This was for photo ops only. I thought we would take pictures of just the car. Kit Kat wanted to be in the pictures.

We drove home, and at night, Kit Kat took Momoko for a test drive to Starbucks. The Apple Carplay worked well. We tested out the speakers with Kit Kat's music. I was able to sit in the back seat for a short drive. Kit Kat calls this her "starter car". I let her take the EZ pass from the car I just sold.

Goodbye Benz

Kit Kat and I went to the car store this weekend. We both drove separate cars. The toll roads made it easy to get there. We quickly talked with an associate. I gave him a key and they checked out my car. We then proceeded to their lot to look at used cars to buy.

I needed help from an associate to locate their Hyundai Venue. The outside looked cool. However the front and back seats were just too small. Hardly enough room for a big cat like me. We checked out some other cars, but got tired. We headed into the waiting room.

In less than an hour, I had an offer for my car. It was $1000 higher than I thought it would be. I ran out to grab the things out of my car. Then I told them I was ready to sell. I handed over the keys and paperwork. We had a seat in the waiting room again.

With this sale settling, I told Kit Kat I could pay for half of her new car. So I went online, and asked the car store to ship an almost new Hyundai Accent from North Carolina to the store near us. The web site hung. But texts and a call from the car store confirmed that the car is coming to us. Kit Kat bought us some drinks, and got 2 for 1 in the vending machine.

Now I am hunting for my next car. I called two dealers. Their ads were misleading, and I decided to forget about them. Most new car dealers these days are trying to extract a huge markup over MSRP.

Plywood Assignment

Grandpa  purchased two 65 inch TVs. He has them both in his living room. He wanted to move one of them to his bedroom. However these new TVs are just too wide to fit on his dresser. So he wanted to get some plywood to sit atop the dresser to brace the bottom of the new TVs.

I borrowed Grandpa's car and drove to Home Depot. I asked an associate there to point me to some plywood with at least one finished surface. He showed me some that had been sanded down. He told me to go to the back of the store to get it cut. A guy was driving a fork lift out the back of the store. He returned to cut the wood. He said to make sure the sticker was showing on top.

I went to the front of the store. There were a bunch of people in line. When I got to the front, I found that I was in the line for contractors. Luckily there were not many people in the regular lines. I had a hard time fitting the 6 foot boards in the back of Grandpa's vehicle. I put the wood in his garage and thought that was it.

Grandpa insisted that we help move the 6 foot board into his bedroom. He said we could lift the existing TV atop the dresser and slide the wood underneath. There was already a shorted piece of plywood on the dresser. I had Little Kat lift up the TV, as he was the tallest. Grandpa pulled out the old wood. I tried to slide in the new longer one. It was tough because wires hung down from the TV. Little Kat struggled to hold up the TV. Afterwards grandpa needed Little Kat to reattached some wires. We went above and beyond a reasonable duty there.

Couch Delivery

We were scheduled to have grandpa's new couch delivered. I set my alarm and woke up early to wait for the delivery. It came to be lunch time. So I woke up Little Kat and told him to wait for the delivery. I went to pick up Momoko's neice for lunch.

I planned to take the neice to a local steak house. She told me a place where they had the best ribeye. She forgot the name and had to look it up. It was the Outback Steak House. We both ordered some ribeye. It was costly. It had been 6 months since I last talk with the neice. She thought she might be able to move out and live in an apartment with Kit Kat. She said she talked to a friend that is a guy that lives in Germany. We spent 2+ hours at lunch.

When I returned back to grandpa's, the delivery guys had just arrived. They said they would not take or even move the old couch out. Little Kat and I cleared a path. Then we found it would not fit through the kitchen door. I asked the delivery guy to remove the feet from the old couch. Then Little Kat and I pushed it through the door out to the carport.

The delivery guys took the feet off the new couch. They had a harder time getting the new couch through the door. They installed the feet and left. Little Kat and I unwrapped the new couch and put everything back in its place. I visited the landfill to find the rules for dumping the old couch (need an ID and water bill). I visited Home Depot and U-Haul to rent a pickup truck. Neither had anything to rent.

Grandpa ended up asking a neighbor with a truck to take the couch to the dump.

Car Business

I called Little Kat to make sure he would be home to drive me to the rental car place by the airport. I had reserved an Audi vehicle for the week. We get there and the guy behind the desk says I have a luxury sedan reservation. I told him I thought I reserved an Audi. He said Audi was one of the cars in that category. He instructed us to go out and talk to an attendant in the car lot.

The attendant told me we could take a Mini Cooper. That was not equivalent to an Audi. I asked if they could rent me an Audi. She said they had some but not right then. She told me I could pick any car on their lot to rent. They did not have many. I opted for a red Dodge Charger. It had less than 5k miles on it. It had a moon roof, heated/cooled seats, power front seats, etc. It was okay. But it did not have a Hemi V8 engine.

Little Kat and I drove to the local Chevy dealership. We dropped off my Spark for maintenance. The mechanic said it would cost $175 which seemed steep. Then we went furniture shopping for grandpa. His couch was no longer supportive. We went to the store where we bought his current couch. Tried to find a couch with electrical outlets. Those only came with recliners. Then we had to find couches with detachable cushions. I purchased one for delivery the next day.

Back at the car dealership, I tried to pay my bill with points. They said they needed my member number. Had no clue what that was. I did know my email and password to their site. They logged me in and captured my number. No out of pocket cash costs for this maintenance.

Flying the Friendly Skies

Momoko took the day off from work to drive Little Kat and I to the airport. We had practiced how to park at a train station near us. Little Kat and I got on a train to head into the city. However we kept on the train through the city to the other side. There we got off at the airport. It was a long walk to the terminal. There was some confusion over how to check our bags. The airline employee told Little Kat he was supposed to wait somewhere far down the hall until they called us up.

We found our departing gate. After a while, Little Kat and I got Italian subs for lunch. The server told us to pay first before he would give us our subs. That is not how the airport worked before. We got on a Boeing 737. Little Kat and I both sat in the last row, each of us at a window. Two large dude came to the back row and sat next to me, making it a tight fit. The steward warned us of oncoming turbulence. He was not wrong.

Little Kat's uncle picked us up at the airport. We were over 30 minutes late. Previously Little Kat had agreed to eat with grandpa that night. When we got to grandpa's house, Little Kat suspiciously asked us when we were going to eat. I told him we would eat later when we were hungry. But I sensed some ulterior motives. I asked Little Kat if he was planning to leave us. He said if we did not eat right away, he would leave and not eat with us. Double crossed. We ended up all eating Mexican food. Little Kat's uncle came with us and got Mexican for his family too.

Cooling Little Kat's Room

In preparation for hosting his friend at our house this summer, Little Kat moved his bedroom down into my study in the basement. It was a much bigger space than his old bedroom upstairs. I moved my study into that small bedroom. The only apparent problem is that now this basement room is really hot with all of Little Kat's electronics.

I asked my handyman if he could install a window unit air conditioner in Little Kat's new room. He said that was not possible because the back of the unit has to be exposed to the outside. Little Kat's new room is completely underground. However my handyman thought we could use a portable A/C unit. We actually have an extra one we keep in the dining room.

Today my handyman came to our house with his son to work on this portable A/C project. He cut a hole in Little Kat's closet wall. He ran a flexible duct through the wall, along the ceiling of the utility room, and out the back of the house. There was already an old unused exhaust hole in the back of our house from an old bathroom that could be widened and reused.

Now the remaining task is to have our handyman install an electrical outlet in Little Kat's closet to power the A/C. We currently have a long extension cord connecting the A/C to an outlet in Little Kat's room. Eventually we will need a new door for Little Kat's closet so that the door can be closed but the cool air can blow through into his room.