Ether. It is a state sometimes. Don’t know if you ever sniffed any but it can make you do weird unexplained things. Like buy a car. And that’s what it’s called, “in the ether,” when a customer finally decides they are going to buy the car and nothing will deter them.

A salesman can see it happen sometimes. Sometimes it’s immediate, like when the mark…oops, customer spies the perfect car, perfect color, perfect price and they almost fall over themselves to get to your desk to make a ridiculously high offer for the car. Hey green peas, it may be your next up. Happens all the time. And sometimes it’s after hours of haggling. All of a sudden the blocks are all down and there might never be a ceiling of how far you can climb after that.

I had a young couple in their late twenties, both who had big time jobs and no kids buy a car from me. They were what we used to call DINKs. They were them and they wanted a Riviera. For months. She came in by herself one day and I upped her. We got along great and since she was herself a sales woman she was loyal and always came in to see me. She would call and make sure I was available and then come to the dealership. We had a couple of Rivs, and she and her husband came numerous times, drove a few, looked at catalogs, took up my time and never would try to buy.

We sold their top choice to someone else and the next day or two she called and told me they were going to come in and make an offer on the car. I told her it was sold. They came in any way. Whatever the impetus to buy a car was for them it had reached, “get off your ass” important stage. We still didn’t make a deal. She had decided that the color we’d sold was it for her, and the other dealer in town had the car and they were going to go buy it.

No matter what I offered to try, even a dollar down and a dollar a day worked. She was entirely too savvy to fall for that crap, right? So they left and went to buy the car.

She called me the next day. They couldn’t make a deal on the car. And she lamented how many thousands they were away from a deal. She told me what they offered, how much down, how much a month, and price she was willing to pay. Yep, no deal there, not even close.

She asked about the other Riv we had and said if she could get her deal they would live with the color, and I said, I’d try whatever they liked to make a deal today. They drove on over.

We drove the car again and the whole time I was talking to them about monthly payments, how much they were, and what they paid back. All those efforts to open their minds about math and prices and still when we hit my desk they offered a ridiculously low payment and wanted the brand new special finance rate of 8.9 percent for three years for a $20K car.

We worked the deal for hours. They were stuck on being financed for only three years. We had the special rate for up to five years, but they were stuck on three-year financing because their accountant said so. Hours. They had come in at 9AM and it was getting to be dinner thirty .

We had gotten the deal down to their payment for five years or huge payment for three years. We still had a decent deal, but the desk locked up and told me if I didn’t get a bump then boot them out.

I got a small bump in payment and a little more down and the desk penciled in big green ink on a fresh sheet of paper, OKAY! YOU WIN!” and wrote the payment down that they wanted. I knew, he  knew, the other salesmen knew, and finally, God knew that payment was for five years, but he didn’t write it.

He looked at me and said go show them and don’t say a word. I did. They were ecstatic. And we shook hands and I wondered how that was all going to work when they got to finance and did the contract. The boss even came in a thanked them for their business and complimented their negotiating skills and shook their hands.

When I got back to the sales office, the boss handed me a sheet with all the numbers just like they would appear on the contract to have me show it to them and have them initial every number. It showed the price, the tax and all the fees, their down payment, balance to finance, the interest rate and the term, which was 60 months.

They couldn’t initial the lines fast enough. I turned it around gave them both pens and went right down the list with them, reading it and then waiting for them to initial each one, and read the last to them very pointedly saying “sixty months”, and they both initialed that line with a flourish. Deal!

They went to finance and signed all the contracts while I filled up the car with gas and ran it through the car wash. I still had bad feelings that it was going to go south, but it didn’t. I showed them my delivery spiel, showed them how the cruise control and all the buttons work, and sent them home with the owner’s manual and spare keys. They were happy, she gave me a hug, he shook my hand!

They were waiting for me the next morning when I got there, contract in hand and no happy faces. They wanted to know how all of a sudden they had financed a car for five years when it was supposed to be three years. They weren’t happy. They wound up driving their new ride back home after we showed them we had told them everything and had not lied even once, still liking the car, but not so much us, I think.

The morning after they came out of the ether.