car owner

The last time I was carless and was using an Enterprise rented car for the interval, their car sales people schmoozed me over the phone, so I went down to the lot to take a look. Their small cars were mostly Hyundai (a name which, pronounced over the phone, sounds a lot like "Honda", which is confusing). It would have saved me some money over replacing my wrecked Honda with a new one, but in the end I felt more comfortable with the more familiar car from the bigger and more established company.

But having that new car crushed within a year of my buying it has disenhearted me, so this time I went straight to Enterprise. Their supply of Hyundais was smaller this year than last, but the one they had on the lot seemed adequate and better for my purposes than the ones on their listings for other lots in the area, so I got it.

Usual slew of paperwork ensued. Biggest hitch occurred when they couldn't find the front license plate (which they'd taken off for storage), so they had to submit a lost license plate report to the DMV to order new ones, and in the meantime print the temporary plates on waterproof paper that the state now requires (to stop cheating on automated bridge toll plazas and such). It was while three people were gathered in the finance manager's office, trying to figure out how to get her laser printer to print single-sided instead of double-sided as it insisted, that I phoned B. and said I wouldn't be home for dinner.

The car is a 2017, which sounds old, but it was built at the end of the model year so it's actually not much over two years old, and I preferred it over a 2018. For one thing it's smaller, and maneuvering into tight parking spaces is one of the main features I want in a car. I took it up to the end of the BART line for a concert in the City last night, and so far it works. I've tentatively named it E.B., because it's White.

And as the salesman insisted on taking a photo of me with it and a ribbon, here it is: