ALWAYS NEVER buy a used car from Russian gangsters, or maybe it’s the other way around.

If Tiff-Bot 9000 and I are gonna traipse around Europe with our pals AND the mutt in tow we’re gonna need wheels. Time to buy a car, not just any car, it’s gotta be an automatic and it’s gotta be big enough for four people, an Andrew Jackson and all sorts of gear, small enough to fit down the tiny roads and paper-thin parking spots of Europe and it’s gotta be fuel efficient enough that we can afford to drive it. (Fuel ain't cheap over here)




To summarize:

We need a big, small car, a car that is strong like bull, a car that BARELY sips gas, a leader who follows, a hat made out of shoes, we need a mini skirt that you can wear to church, we need the impossible and we need to be able to sleep in it if we’re camping and it starts to rain according to Tiffany. Truth to tell, I have never been camping and then slept in a car when or if it starts to rain, I have always packed up in the middle of the night, miserable and bitching about how much I hate camping or been drunk enough not to care and/or notice that I’m sleeping in 3 inches of water. Call it a sign of the times when being able to live in your vehicle becomes a pre-requisite of your automotive needs.



So we scour the internet for a station wagon. Tippy think wagons are “mom cars” but I know the truth. The truth is a station wagon is the rolling equivalent of diplomatic immunity. No one can touch you. You can drive 120 mph the wrong way down a one way with a fucking crack pipe made out of a human baby skull stuffed in your maw as long as you’re behind the wheel of a station wagon. It's a four-doored, hatch-backed invisible cloak that will make a cop assume you’re just a flustered mom who’s late picking up little Johnny Walker Texas Ranger from biathlon practice. You’re untouchable, you’re a non-threat, even if your blood alcohol level would stun Steven Adler.



We find our wagon, a 96 Passat on some website. A Volkswagen is a good car in the states, on it’s home turf it’s gotta be fantastic right? We send the info to our relocation agent, she calls the dealer, we set up a meeting for a Wednesday morning. Wednesday rolls around and it’s just below freezing. Just below freezing to me means I need to remember my touque. Just below freezing to TB3K* means 3 and a half seconds outside is 4 seconds too effin’ long. Which is fine cause as long as it’s an automatic and I’m cool with it Tippy’s gonna give it thumbs up. An older guy leads us to the car, the first thing I notice is this car has been sitting for awhile. The doors are sound like they've been glued shut, opening each one requires a slow bounce, like pushing a car that’s stuck in the snow…one…two…THREE!! The lot guy starts the car up, like I said she’s been sitting for awhile but she fires right up with no smoke. This is a good sign, I check the fluids, the tires, the switches and all that stuff that makes me kinda look like I know what’s going on. Another guy comes outside to check on us, he’s mid 40’s salt and pepper with a demeanor of a man who has never been rattled, one of those dudes who has never jumped when a friend hides in the dark and yells BOO! The car has a few issues but for the most part seems cool. We retire to the office to work out details.



The car needs smog and inspection tags, tires, an oil change, a cracked lens fixed and a turn signal bulb. We won’t buy the car without all this stuff taken care of. We know this might jack the cost up past what we are prepared to pay. I know how much a set of tires costs, but this is a deal breaker for us if he won’t do it, we need him to stand behind the car. He thinks for a second, and adds $300 to the cost. Tip and I both feel like we should negotiate but it’s already so cheap that it seems greedy, like haggling at a yard sale for Special Olympics. Plus we’re so far inside out budget we’re kind surprised.



“Hey man, can I use the toilet?” I ask. In Germany you don’t ask for a bathroom, you ask for a toilet, which is weird to me too but I’m getting used to it. The older guy takes me outside and points to a shoddy door on a filthy wooden shack near a stack of old tires, exhaust pipes and other assorted car parts. This is gonna be gross I know it. I wade through the rusted metal and old rubber and open the door into a HUGE, SPOTLESS, GLOWING CASINO. There are poker tables, snooker tables, roulette wheels and bangin’ hot chicks speaking Russian to each other. No one pays me any mind, I use the bathroom and get the hell out of there before I become a witness. To what? I don’t wanna know either. I look at the other used cars in this lot on my walk back to the office. BMWs, Benzs, Saabs, Alpha Romeos all newer than 2003 or 2004, our car is by far the oldest and cheapest car on the lot. Back in the office I can’t WAIT to tell Tiff what I saw. We agree on a time to come back and test drive the car with all the changes made and we leave. I almost RUN to the car for the privacy.

“Tiff, you know why that guy is selling that car so cheap?”

“Why?”

“He didn’t pay for it.”

“What do you mean?” she axed.

“Someone put it up for collateral and couldn’t afford to get it back so he sold it for what he was owed plus a couple bucks”

I tell her about the casino, we talk about collateral and how unshakable the guy was.

“He’s a gangster, he said he’d get it through the smog test, I didn’t think much of it then but now…” I said

“I have a friend” he said.

Tiff asked “Do you think we should buy it?”

“Why not? The car is good and he has all the paper work”



I hope we don't find any fingers in the glove box. Who keeps fingers in the glove box anyways? I'll make Tippy look.

After the car thing we went to KFC for lunch, this is something we would NEVER do in the states, as a matter of fact, minus one stop to get some nuggets during a moment of near starvation I have not had KFC since my Step Father and I helped my Aunt Sandy move when I was 13 or 14.



Here is a picture of Tiffany that I took at KFC:



The soda fountain looks like it came out of a Russian Military Cafeteria.
"YOU HAVE SODA?"
"ALLE IST SODA!"
"ALLE IST WATER!!!!"
"LEADER SAY ALLE IST SODA, ALLE IST SODA!!"
"JAH, IST SODA!"


and they serve the food on glass dishes...like a restaurant, not in paper bowls like you would feed a dog out of. Which made us feel a little better about eating at a KFC...home is where you find it dude

*Tiff Bot 3000