Mom's ride
Mom is the proud owner of a 2015 AWD Ford Escape Titanium with the technology package, the 2.0L engine, the Panoramic Roof, and the Navigation package. When I left off, she had wanted to wait until after I got back from my New Orleans trip. Well naturally she didn't want to talk about it when I got back and wanted to just brush it under the rug. I realized at that point she was playing me and trying to get me distracted enough to forget about it.
Two can play that game.
I picked up the mantle of playing a game and started playing the car salesman part. I'd take every opportunity to talk about every advantage she'd have in a new vehicle. I was sill agnostic on model and make, but would just pick up parts that I knew her next vehicle would have like a better entry/exit position, a better driving position, a power liftgate, more room in the back, AWD, a backup camera, and other stuff like that. I kept looking for specific models for sale, print them out, and then leave them around for her to look at. I'd even find youtube videos and then bring them up for her to watch on our big screen TV. She seemed to warm up to the Escape when I pointed out one on the road and she realized that she already liked it.
I knew I had her when she asked me out of the blue what the difference was between leasing and purchasing. She was thinking about it on her own! I probably could have let her continue to ride it out on her own, but I pushed her even more and even took her out to the dealership at one point to sit in one. We didn't talk to a sales man and I made sure it was an Escape that was too expensive so that we couldn't have dealt on it anyway. And yeah... she liked it. She got in and out with ease. It was at the local Ford dealership and she looked at several of the Escapes they had on the lot, while I pointed out the differences in the trim levels and she looked over the colors (both internal and external) in person. I was surprised to find out that she liked the Ruby Red... the same color that my own 2015 Fusion Hybrid (Ginger) was, and that she even liked it with the beige interior that I had in Ginger.
That night when I got her home I had a more serious talk with her and got her to accept that getting a new car was not only a good idea, but an inevitability. That I was going to do it for her, that it was good for her, that it would make me happy. She picked out one that we'd seen at the lot that she liked and was at a very good price (good enough that it wouldn't change the monthly payment) even if it was at fairly high miles (83,000). So I started the processes up in earnest. I got the payoff on her car and it's Kelly blue book value so I could get it's trade in value (turns out it's worth about $2700 after paying off the remainder of it's loan!). I then looked harder at the one she picked out and found out why it was so cheap. It wasn't the miles, it was the fact that it wasn't AWD. So I spent the entire weekend searching out used models around a 50 mile radius that would meed our requirements.
And just as I was about to focus in on one that was about 45 minutes away, I figured out something.... the VERY one she had sat in, the one that was 'too expensive'... was actually quite a good deal. Yes, it was more expensive than any other one I was looking at and wouldn't have made the list due to it's asking price, but it had everything we wanted. It was Red, had the beige interior, AWD, had only 33,000 miles, had the tech package, and was best of all here in town. And the price... well if we financed it over 6 years, we could keep the monthly price at $300 which is the exact price we were looking at for every other one except over 5 years.
The fact that it was in town was the final selling point. Mom has a hard time getting around and with financing through our local credit union, buying a car in another town is rough. The process would look like this: Drive up to the dealership (about an hour), test drive it and deal on it if we like it (figure about 3 hours if we can get a deal we like), drive back to the credit union (an hour) to finish up the loan and get a check (another hour), go back to the dealership to finish buying the car (yet another hour), then come home with the new ride (a final hour). That's an 8 hour day just to buy a car and I figure that's a conservative estimate and assuming that we're pre-approved for the loan. Now if we do it in town, the credit union has a deal worked out with the dealership where they can finish off the paperwork there.
So we start with the same premise of having the loan pre-approved. We drive to the dealership (15 minutes), test drive it and deal on it if we like it (figure about 3 hours if we can get a deal we like)... then we drive home in it. Seriously, that would be it as all the paperwork could be finished at the dealership! Maybe not just three hours, but four? It literally would half the day.
And to make it even better, I could use the same salesman that helped me lease Isabella. I've already established a relationship with him, he knows me, he knows I WILL buy and don't like to draw things out over days, but WILL walk away if the deal isn't right.
Mom agreed, I agreed, Mom got pre-approved, we went to the dealership, and that afternoon we drove back in her new Escape! She's named it 'Lil Brucie (my Dad's name was Bruce). I'm just a tad disturbed by that as I always look at cars as female so I'll take her, 'Lil Brucie, out for a drive. It just sounds wrong, but it's not my car. It's Mom's. And she loves it.
Only one little problem has cropped up. It's missing a little trim piece under the headlight assembly. It isn't needed for weather proofing or anything. I didn't notice it until we had it home. I send an email to the salesman to see if he can help us get it fixed, but I doubt he'll get it fixed 'right', as I found out that it's not just a trim piece. It's actually PART of the headlight assembly. And as this has the tech package and that includes the HID Xenon lights, the headlight assembly goes for $1300.
Yeah, it's going to be missing that trim piece for a long long time.
My migraines
I had another one. Fuck, these suck. They're lasting two days now, almost all the time. And as I'm finding out this weekend, it's not so much the pain that makes them suck, it's the fact that I just can't think during them. I'm dealing with more pain right now but I can at at least think. But during a migraine I feel like an idiot. I've been on the Topamax for 2 weeks now at 25mg a night and just started the 50mg a night dose last night. Two more weeks until I move up to 75mg.
Dental
I'm scheduled to have a crown put in this Thursday, but I doubt it's going to happen now. You see, I've been having this low level pain in my left jaw for the past couple weeks. I just figured it was the tooth that needed the crown, a side effect of the topamax, or some other random problem. If it was the crown, it would be corrected when I got that done. If it was the topamax it would change when the dose changes (either better or worse). Well, out of the blue it got worse. Much worse. It inspired the migraine I mentioned above as the pain radiated up into my head, that got worse, and it became a migraine.
When the migraine finally went away, I was still left with the pain in my jaw. For a day it was still difuse, but then the next day I found out it was actually coming from a specific tooth. Sadly, I don't remember which tooth is destined to get crowned, but I figured it was this one. As it's already destined to get fixed, I would just manage the pain and get through it. I was taking 800mg of ibuprofen every 4 hours and on Friday started to augment that with some Vicodin that I had laying around (ironically the only time I've been prescribed Vicodin or Norco is from dental pain).
But late Friday afternoon I found a flaw.. the pain was coming from a tooth that couldn't be the one getting the crown. It was coming from the tooth that already had a crown. This is bad. This means that there's likely an infection in the root.
Root Canal.
And to make matters worse, if I want to get it fixed now (as it should be done) I need to call my dentist in an emergency over Easter weekend. I'd hold out, but they say to not do that in this circumstance, so I called the emergency number and my dentist called me back. We talked about it, and since he knows I'm a nurse he asked me for some self assessment. I told him that there was no swelling, and just a lot of pain. I also told him that I really didn't want to ruin his weekend (and the other staff he'd need to bring in), and that I could manage the pain with the meds I have on hand as long as he thought that was okay.
He agreed that it was okay, so long as I reported any worsening or swelling. So now I'm taking 800mg of ibuprofen every 4 hours, and two 5/300 Vicodin at the same time. It's managing the pain and not taking it away. And that dose of Vicodin does make me quite a bit loopy. Monday I'll get in and it looks like it will be an urgent root canal.
The good news is that the root canal should alleviate the pain. Sure, there will be some swelling, but that should be manageable with ibuprofen alone and should go away after a few days. Then a week later I'll go back in to crown THAT tooth again and we'll have to reschedule the tooth that still needs a crown.
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