{"id":3779,"date":"2007-06-02T07:56:41","date_gmt":"2007-06-02T11:56:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/?p=2144"},"modified":"2007-06-02T07:56:41","modified_gmt":"2007-06-02T11:56:41","slug":"matts-car-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/2007\/06\/02\/matts-car-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Matt&#039;s Car"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href='https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/06\/lexus.jpg' title='lexus.jpg'><img src='https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/06\/lexus.thumbnail.jpg' alt='lexus.jpg' \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Hey, Dad, how come the car\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not on the blog?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Matt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s right, how come the car isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t on the blog?  Is it because it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a Lexus?<\/p>\n<p>I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve always worried about Matt driving Diane\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s old airbag-less  Mazda. Yeah, we grew up without bags and soft dashboards and crumple zones, and for a while non-tempered windshield glass (or was that before my time?), and many of us survived. Still, driving without airbags feels to me like walking into battle without a flak jacket. If you get shot in the face, so be it, at least you tried to protect yourself.<\/p>\n<p>Sometime in April we told Matt we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d buy him a car as long at it didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t cost more than ten grand. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not sure what make I thought he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d focus on, but I admit to some surprise when he narrowed his choices down to BMW and  Lexus. I vetoed the BMW because for that money he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d be buying an older rear wheel drive car. Not in New England, I said.  Then he found his dream car on autotrader.com.  A 1998 Lexus ES 300 with 74,000 miles.<\/p>\n<p>I said, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s too old. He said it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s in perfect condition. I asked why a small dearlership in Lawrence? He said because they&#8217;re good people.  I said keep looking.  He said he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d take me to Lawrence, to <a href=\u00e2\u20ac\u009dhttp:\/\/www.michaelsmotors.com\/\u00e2\u20ac\u009d>Michael\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Motors<\/a> and prove me wrong. We went, he did, and now he has the nicest car in the family. The nicest car this family has ever had.<\/p>\n<p>As an aside, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve never bought a car without feeling like I was ripped off.  I bought my truck after 9-11,  after the dealer lowered the price twice after he finally asked me  what I was willing to pay,  and I still felt like I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d been screwed. With Matt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s car, after meeting Sean and his dad, Michael, and seeing that Lexus in my yard for the last three weeks,  I feel good and clean and unviolated.  In fact, I feel nothing but pride in my smart son&#8217;s smart choice. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Hey, Dad, how come the car\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not on the blog?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Matt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s right, how come the car isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t on the blog? Is it because it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a Lexus? I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve always worried about Matt driving Diane\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s old airbag-less Mazda. Yeah, we grew up &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/2007\/06\/02\/matts-car-2\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-other"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3779\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}