TESTING PATIENCE

I've been helping Rod, my friend and neighbour this week to buy a car.

You might remember Rod, who I met at the Real Estate Training course I did a few years ago.
See here:

THE OLD ENGLISH BLOKE

Now Rod's a nice guy but he is pretty infuriating. He is picky and closed minded. He talks incessantly and is very annoying. We're mates never-the-less.
On Wednesday I drove Rod down to Auckland for the day to look at a couple of cars that he had seen on Trade Me. He wants to buy in Auckland as he's convinced that cars in Whangarei cost about $3000 more than in Auckland. He wants to buy a $5000 car! He's nuts.

The first car we looked at was from a dealers yard in South Auckland. We drove past many car dealer yard that looked very good until reaching the worst and dodgiest looking car yard in the city. This was the one that Rod wanted to go to. The car was crap. Rod mucked around with it and wanted to take it for a test drive. I told him that he was wasting his time but that he could do that but I wasn't going to come with him. The car sounded like a diesel engine even though it was petrol.
About 3 minutes Rod came back all in a fluster. The fuel warning light had come on as he left the yard and he panicked as he was worried about getting stranded (Rod doesn't handle the big city and traffic very well).
We left to look at the other car.

This of course had to be on the other side of the city out West. The seller was a private owner who was playing bowls. He gave Rod the keys and we checked out the car - A Mitsubishi 380 sedan. 120,000 kms, 2009 model in perfect condition.  Price $5250. We took it for a drive and everything was tip top. I told Rod to buy it. He said that the guy in the ad had said 'or near offer' so offered the guy $4500. The guy was insulted and said he'd rather keep it for his kids when they visit. We left and drove back to Whangarei. I couldn't convince Rod to ring the guy and buy it at $5250 as he got on his high horse complaining about how 'immoral' it is to advertise as 'or near offer' and then renege. He's an idiot.

Back in Whangarei on Thursday I got a call from a prospective apartment buyer who wanted to view on Friday. I told Rod as we were both at the tennis club and he said he'd like to come with me to look at more cars. We went down by bus on Friday morning. I showed the apartment to the prospect (he's thinking about it) and in the afternoon Rod and I bus-hopped around the city looking at car sales yards. We saw lots of good cars at between 5 and 6 thousand. Rod didn't like any of them. Why? He wants a Mitsubishi or a Toyota. We saw Nissans, Hondas, Mazdas and all sorts of other ideal cars but Rod wants a fucking Toyota.

We stayed in the apartment overnight as we had booked the Saturday 1PM bus and had planned more car yard visits on Saturday morning.
On Friday evening after a wasted afternoon I said we'd go to see a film. Rod hasn't seen a film in a cinema for about 20 years ("I don't like the way the audience rustle their lolly papers" he said). I wanted to go to a film so that he would have to sit quietly for a couple of hours (I told you that he talks incessantly). The only film I could interest him in was Dunkirk which I'd already seen but agreed to. He kept banging on about how he'd seen the original Dunkirk film with John Mills in it about 50 years ago.

The film was OK for him but he complained about the fact that there was only one Heinkel in it (he's a plane watcher and even used to be a train spotter in the UK. Bloody Anorak!). When we left the cinema it was about quarter to nine and I said lets go to a cafe or restaurant. It was too late for him to have 'tea' though as he normally has 'tea' at 5PM and goes to bed at 9PM. Fuck! He had brought down some cakes that his wife made and packed for him so for dinner we had a cup of tea and a cake. Very unsatisfactory.

By this time I was thinking of dangling him out the window of our 14th floor apartment.

The next morning we once again had no success with finding him a car. By this time I'd give up and was looking for a car for myself as I want to buy a more robust car once I've sold the apartment.

We got the bus back to Whangarei (another 2 1/2 hours of listening to him witter on.)

Never again!

I'm meeting up with Rod this afternoon to play snooker with some other old guys down the road so we're still mates.