When a High Pressure Salesman Shakes Hands with a Lunatic in Disguise

It was a Saturday afternoon and I had just finished all my weekly errands and was racing home in my beat up ghetto cruiser.

I gave myself two hours to get everything done and as I glanced at my watch I realized I had an extra twenty minutes to kill. My car was on it's last leg and it could barely change lanes without fishtailing, they said it had something to do with control arms and a host of other parts that went bad long ago. So I decided to make my weekly stop at the local dealership, in hopes that they would have some sort of trade-in that they were willing to sell dirt cheap instead of wholesaling.

The plan was to get in and get out, if I saw something I would come back later, because I was a man on a mission.

The only flaw in my well constructed plan was the car, it had never learned the subtle nuances of being discrete, this was the type of car that gets you pulled over every time you drive, my record was three times in one night. The previous owner installed giant ghetto rims and unknown color of tint, by the time I owned the car, the tint had faded to a mix of burgundy, pink and purple depending on the time of day.

As I slowly pulled in all of the car salesmen turned toward me, others began racing out the doors in my direction.

They were well dressed in their khaki pants and button down shirts, but I knew the truth and just how ravenous they really were. If a zombie outbreak struck, I cannot see how this scene would have played out any differently, so instead of parking I gave them the slip by driving behind the building and leaving them in a cloud of smoke. I manged to make my way over to the used cars without too much attention, most of the salesmen were busy chasing carbon monoxide on the other side of the building.

I got out and began racing from car to car, these were the types of cars that all you needed to do was take a glance on the inside to see what may have happened in there.

Some were freshly wrecked others were missing seats and one looked as if it were a victim of arson in order to cover up some awful crime of passion. There wasn't a single car that was even worth considering, but then I saw a truck that had no major body damage and no sad story painted in blood on the seats. As I inspecting the truck a car salesman caught up to me, I tried to turn my back on him but this car salesman was part bloodhound, he managed to get my scent and he was following the only instincts that he had ever known. With a forceful enthusiasm he said “Can I help you find anything,” My mind began to race, I wanted to tell him to fuck off, but my fear of confrontation got the best of me and I cowardly said “no.”

He asked me if I knew how to drive a stick and I said yes, so he began telling me how great this truck is and that we should go on a test drive.

I quickly said “I don't want to go on a test drive,” but he knew better “c'mon lets go for test drive.” I said “I'm OK” but he continued to rephrase the question in ways that I never expected. I could feel myself breaking down as I said “I don't know,” so then he turned up the pressure. I fought off his advances for as long as I could but I was out of my league and all I could hear was my own insecurities “quit being a pussy and be a man.” So I panicked and attempting to hold onto whatever low self worth that I had left, I caved into the pressure and I forgot all about my schedule and the ice cream that was rapidly melting in my back seat.

The next thing I knew I was pulling a massive 4 door truck into traffic, I was having a little trouble with shifting gears and that embarrassing grinding noise reared it's ugly head.

He then asked me weird questions like “can you feel that ride?” and then he would answer his own question with more questions “smooth huh?” But then the moment of truth arrived, he began asking me to make a left, so we could turn around. I was extremely nervous that I would wreck the truck, this was a very busy road and I couldn't shake that anxious feeling. The further I drove without turning the more nervous he seemed to become as if I was never going to stop and he would end up in some basement as part of a collection of car salesmen that I managed procure. About a mile down the road I finally found a good spot to turn and as we got back on the road I couldn't seem to gain speed, so I kept changing gears. The more I changed gears the more I heard that awful grinding and for the life of me I could no longer figure out how to use the shifter.

To calm the situation I said “I have not driven a stick shift in a while,” but I could hear the terror in his voice as he said “Just watch the road.”

At that point I realized I had been staring at the shifter for some time, my right hand shoved it forward and then back over and over as it kept making that terrible sound, grinding parts of the truck away. I looked up to see the car salesman's face and he was no longer sitting, he was gripping the “oh shit handle” with both hands and his face looked as if he was witnessing his own death. He was completely checked out and none of this seemed right to me, so my mind began racing to find out why things were going so very wrong. Then it hit me like ton of bricks, my stomach dropped and I felt nauseous as the memory came flooding back.

Two hours ago my roommate and I were eating LSA in the form of handfuls of Hawaiian Baby Woodrose seeds and I decided to go run a few errands.

I assured him that I would be back before they kicked in, but I wasn't back, instead I was fighting a shifter with some pushy asshole who thinks this is the best time to come to terms with his own mortality. The car salesman began pointing in front of him and he was trying to say something but all he could muster was the soft repeating “H” sound.

I looked out the window to see what he was pointing at and I realized that we were no longer on the road, we were bouncing over bumps in a field.

I realized what he meant by that smooth ride question so I said “yeah you're right, it really is smooth,” but he wasn't listening. A shopping center was rapidly traveling toward us and I knew that my copilot's head was no longer in the game, so it was all up to me. I began searching all the windows to see where the road might have went and then I found it about fifteen feet to my left.

I said “I like to go off roading” in an attempt to play it off as if I planned this, then I proceeded to get back on the road.

I used my left turn signal and I drove slow and cautious hoping that maybe I could change his opinion of me, as if the field incident was a fluke and that is not really who I am. I wanted to show that I am like an onion and there is much more to me than just some guy that can't change gears and has a tendency to lose the road, I thought that maybe I could convey all this with my impeccable driving skills. I got us back to the dealership without incident and as we got out I said “That's one hell of a truck,” but he was no longer interested in pushing me into 36 easy payments of more than I could afford.

The car salesman was marching across the parking lot, I wondered if he was in a hurry to tell his buddies about how he just met the funniest off roader, but his body language suggested otherwise.

I remembered that this was probably a traumatic experience for him and I began to feel bad, but then I felt righteous indignation, that maybe he will think twice before he pressures someone else into a test drive after they have already said no. I wasn't exactly sure what he knew, part of me thought that he knew everything even about the Hawaiian Baby Woodrose and he was about to spill his guts to a coked up gang of used car salesmen. I immediately ran over to my car and drove out of enemy territory, escaping whatever car lot justice they had in store for me.

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To Law Enforcement any and all, past, present and future crimes that may be mentioned in this article were a work of fiction, that were thought up by someone else, in another country, long before the laws were created and I am not sure how hackers inserted them into this article.