not so suave as I imagined...

As worldly-wise, street-smart and with-it as I think I am, sometimes I can be an absolute dolt. As naive as the day is long. A babe in the woods. All that and more. A rear Rube....

In the last week I had received three letters from three different Hyundai dealers offering to buy my 2007 Elantra for up to $7850! All the letters told me, in one way or another, that they had a need for a larger inventory of 2007 and 2008 Hyundai's. So I spent a bit of the week pondering what on earth could cause a sudden demand for 2007/08 Elantra's. Had they come into fashion? Was Beyonce seen driving one? Did Kate Middleton tell a reporter she admired them?

Or was there a flaw in them so horrendous that Hyundai couldn't survive a public recall so dealers were asked to buy them up for enormous losses to avoid public humiliation for the company?

Or was a new action movie coming out with Tom Cruise and Matt Damon driving 2007 Hyundai's down the canals of Venice and Corporate knows there will be a big demand for them when the movie premiers?

Or did they suddenly realize that these Hyundai's are the best cars ever made (which I wouldn't disagree with giving that I love mine) and that they can sell them used for even more than they sold them new and do a double-dip  profit off 2007/08 Elantras?

Those are just some of the thoughts that went through my head this week while pondering why on earth three different dealerships would want to buy my little black Hyundai (which really loved the few days of rain because it washed off all the bird poop that had accumulated on the front hood and windshield and part of the roof because I park beneath the tree on the west end of our front porch.)

So my good friend, Fred, was coming to pick me up to go to Alice's wake (the wonderful woman I wrote about a few days ago in 'Spring is not a good time to die') who did, sadly die. Fred was an intern with me at St. John's in Waterbury the last two years or so before I retired and knew Alice from there.

I had one of the three letters in my pocket, having opened in on my porch while waiting for Fred, and since Fred is one of the people that knows more stuff than I can imagine, I thought I'd ask him about why these various Hyundai dealers were interested in buying my car.

So I told him about the letters and he looked at me with the combination of reasonableness and sadness that a person might look at a child who is about to know there is not Santa Claus.

Then he told me, kindly as he could, because Fred is kind as well as all knowing, "they don't want to buy your car. They want to sell you a new one so they've offered you outrageous prices so you'll come in and take a test drive and not feel cheated when they give you less than the letter said."

I must admit, from a few words into that explanation I suddenly realized the real reason for the letters and the fake checks. Fred, as usual, was right on correct. Of course they wanted me to come see them (even leaving a phone # and a name to set a time convenient for me to drop by) and surely the $7850 they were willing to give me for my car would go down when they saw the dents and dings and the 67.000 miles on the odometer, but when they told me they could put me in a 2013 Hyundai for only a tad more than I'm now paying a month--and let me drive the obviously superior machine...well, we might just make a deal....

My car is almost paid off, a month or two. So their computers must spit out that information to various Connecticut dealers who then make me offers to buy my car.

And for most of a week I was pondering "why would they want to buy my car?"

Here's the moral to this sad tale of naivete, Beloved: "Pondering" is one of the most important thing we thinking mammals can do. However, 'pondering' something that should have been as baldly obvious to me as it was to Fred (and later Bern when I told her this story--she even snickered a bit while I was telling it and snickering is a common and normal reaction to blind naivete) is not only a waste of good pondering-time, it makes you look like a Rube.

So, when you turn to pondering, make sure you aren't wasting valuable pondering-time on what, to someone with half a brain should have been as plain as the look on your face.....

Just fair warning and just me talkin'...or more correctly, 'typin'....