I was cruising through my old photos the other day when I found this pic. I realize not everyone has heard the story about why this image is so epic, so here we go.

In June of 2004 my old Chevy Cavalier broke down on the I-90 floating bridge. Twice. On Tuesday both times. In the exact same spot. I towed it to the repair shop, fixed it, sold it to my neighbor for $500 and went to Tacoma to find a new car. At the auto mall I was shopping for old Land Rovers (hey, gas was cheap and I lived in Bellevue) but for some reason I test drove a 2003 Lancer OZ. It was fun. I was no longer looking for Land Rovers. Unfortunately, the dealer claimed that OZ was spoken for (lies!) but he had a nice red one back at the dealership. So I rode to the dealership to see my new destiny. It was a red 2002 Mitsubishi Lancer ES, I loved it and I bought it and named it Reuben.

“Now wait a second,” you may now be saying, “I thought your car was blue.” Well two days later the dealership still didin’t have the final papers from the bank, so I was still waiting for them to call me and I decided to explore my options. I drove up to Seattle Mitsubishi to see what they had. They just so happened to have a clean 2002 LS with no plates for sale for $1000 less than I had agreed to pay for the red one. They found me a 4.5% interest rate and I bought it instead. I returned Reuben to the other dealer and they shredded my papers.

Part of the sale with Seattle Mitsubishi was that they do some work on the car to get it up to snuff. They agreed to do a brake job and alignment, and replace the weatherstriping on the windows, “Come back next week.” “No appointment?” “Naah, just come on in”

The next week rolls around, and on Thursday I take Lance in to have the work done. I notice there’s no cars in the lot and the lights appear to be off inside. There’s a note on the door that says “Inventorying, please come back Thursday.” I figured I must have just missed them, and I’d come back the next week. I called the dealer just in case to leave a message, and the voicemail was full. Weird.

The next Thursday rolls around and I show up again, and there’s still no cars. This time the door has another note on it, in addition to the “Inventorying” note… It’s from the State of Washington. Something about taxes, oh, and a chain around the door handles with a fatty padlock on it.

I had a good laugh and came back later that night to take a picture, that’s how you get the image above. What followed was a 9 month debacle to get my car licensed and registered, since they never processed the paperwork and actually never fully processed the prior sale. The state had no proof I had bought the car, save for the copies of my papers I mailed to them. Seems the dealership hadn’t been reporting sales to the state in that last week, so they could pocket the money and run. guess the joke’s on them now.

The funny thing is how things settle into place after somehitng like that happens. Some weird stuff I remembered afterwards:

• They knocked $3000 off the price of the car, “Just for me.”
• When Kari walked in with me the sales guy looked her up and down and asked, “How’d you get so tan?”
• They offered to fix everything. No extra cost. “Just come back next week.”
• They offered to return Reuben for me. Yeah right.
• The repair bays had what looked like props for 3Fast3Furious in them

Man, if I could do it again I would have bought the 04 Lancer Sportback they had and negotiated them down to $500 for it.

Anyways, in true Lach fashion, nothing could come without some crazy unlikely story surrounding it and Lance is no different. He’s been such a trouble-free car too, maybe he’s compensating.