Some such thing as used

A car dealer, into his cellphone, unselfconscious and in earshot of potential customers, in reference to another (potential) customer: "I think we can squeeze another sixteen hundred out of him." Then he of course turned around to tell us what great value we'd get on whichever model. This was exciting, actually, as I'd never witnessed this cultural icon in action. The rest of the dealers were disappointingly down-to-earth about the whole thing. Might have had something to do with us having found the time to do this the same day the weather found the time to be Las Vegas in summer, with humidity.

I fear, in this process, that I don't merely suggest but radiate my-family-never-had-a-car, I-thought-a-"sedan"-was-some-kind-of-van-until-six-months-ago. Thankfully I married someone not from the center of a big city with great public transportation. I have friends in my situation who learned to drive and purchased cars completely on their own; while I was already in awe already, now doubly so. But there is a sense in which looking for closet-sized apartments in Brooklyn and Manhattan, with brokers, prepares a person for this sort of thing. (What's the car equivalent of an exposed-brick wall? As in, something of no consequence either way, that's listed as a selling point that might distinguish one it'll-do option from another?) It felt familiar, this dance. 

Whatever the case, after reading up on what to ask about, and just generally getting into the mode of double-checking everything, I had trouble snapping out of it as needed. At the spacious women's restroom of a dealership, I expected a dealer to be there energetically explaining the pros and cons of each vacant stall ('this one has an unexplained pile of toilet paper on the floor, but that one doesn't flush as smoothly as the 2011 model'). At the supermarket after this most exhausting of days, I looked with such care at peach after peach, all of which looked just fine, and none of which went for thousands of dollars. And don't even get me started on the shopping cart itself, which I'm pretty sure needs to be checked by an impartial mechanic.