Week of Thanks - Day Five

I would like to express fervent gratitude for the people who came out on Black Friday and bought cars from my husband, especially the ones who came with $33,000 in cash. Yes, cash.

With so many years of experience in the car business, my husband -- like many other salesmen -- has learned to recognize the true buyers from the casual shoppers or wishers and dreamers. Men by themselves? Depends. Salesmen look for wedding rings on men's fingers. If the man is wearing a wedding ring but is at the dealership by himself, he's most likely a wisher and dreamer who's there to look at a new Camaro and tell anyone who will listen about the Z-28 he bought with the money he saved up by mowing lawns from birth to seventeen years old.

But a man who is there with his wife? He is a serious buyer. A couple of those couples came out yesterday and helped turn a really sucky and scary month into a slightly less stomach-churning period for us. One cute couple called their daughter, a freshman at Butler, to come look at the car before they made their decision: The girl arrived, said she loved it, and mom and dad got out the checkbook. I thought that was really sweet and funny.

What was particularly nice about the people my husband worked with yesterday is that both couples, he said, were lovely people. Easy to work with. Pleasant and kind. Friendly. There are so many of the other sort, he says, that you tend to remember the ones who were great.

Here's hoping for a few more magnanimous folks to be grateful for before the month ends on Monday. Baby needs a new pair of shoes. And Mommy needs to buy groceries for Christmas dinner. And for all the other days in December that aren't Christmas. We're in the clutch here, people. Go buy a Chevy from my husband, the Prince of Salesmen and make me even more thankful than I am right now.

Black Friday has not traditionally been a day when there are lots of car sales. For the past thirteen years that my husband has been selling cars, it's mostly been a day when the salesmen sit in the showroom next to the phones that are not ringing, eating the pralines that someone's wife sent in and working crossword puzzles as they scan the lot. Who ever would have guessed that there would be serious car buyers out on this particular day in this particular economy?

For that, all levity aside, I am truly grateful.