Well, we were going to buy a new car next year. Because we are skint this year. Moving house, international school fees, weddings in Scotland; not exactly leaving a lot of yen in the coffers.
Fatal mistake: J to Y, " We've nothing better to do, why don't we go and test drive a Prius"
We'd decided that the next car we bought would be a hybrid car. "Very you" said my sister. Not sure what that means but anyway.... we'll take it as a compliment. Although not so sure, coming from someone who drives a 3 litre turbo diesel Audi convertible....Anyway, we'd heard they could feel weird to drive, so thought we better check it out before committing ourselves - next year of course.
Enter Mr Watanabe. We test drove the car, which was not in the least bit weird to drive. The only reservation I had was that it was too small for my luggage hauling needs - you never know when you might need that kitchen sink - but I looked at my previous number 1 choice, called a Harrier here, and found the practical space was not what I had thought anyway, and an Estima, which is brilliant on the inside, but just too damn ugly to compromise on on the outside; but the bottom line is: if you're supposedly doing it for the environment, the mileage stats can't be ignored. It has to be the Prius.
So, we said right, thank you very much, we'll be back next year.
Oh naive gaijin that I am.
Mr Watanabe had other ideas. He'd been at our house before we'd even been home, which freaked me out somewhat. However, he's quite the gentleman, and smacks of the kind of polite good service that I am a sucker for. Nonetheless, after 3 visits at weird times I said quite plainly, " I really am planning to buy a Prius next year, but if you keep pestering me about it, it will only put me off, so please wait until we contact you" Which sounds a lot ruder even than that in Japanese!
He then followed with 2 strokes of genius: 1) he offered us a trade in price on the RAV4 which was much more than was realistic, for God knows what reasons, and 2) he came round our house when we were both drunk, to press us for a decision. Quote from Dr Y: " Mr Watanabe's at the door. You better go, I'm too drunk to say no" Unfortunately so was I.
And so it was that on Saturday last week, we found ourselves the happy new owners of a metallic red Prius. I felt compelled to include Mr W in the family shot. A tribute to the man who managed to get me to buy what I'd sworn I wouldn't. Despite my skill at finding things to spend money on by myself, I really do hate persistent salesmen, and am overly suspicious of anyone trying to sell me anything. Well done Mr W!
I have to say I'm loving it though. Once I worked out how to switch it on that is. The navigation system has voice recognition, so you can literally say " I want to go home" and it takes you home. I'm impressing myself that it generally understands what I say - except when people are watching of course! It also tells you where the traffic jams are. Its HDD music system renders my iPod unnecessary. The dashboard is like something out of a sci-fi film. And it's so so quiet...
Of course now we really are skint!
日本語版は後でね。。。
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