What happened on the way to the grocery store?

We leased a Honda in March of 2020; the end of the lease was coming up, so we decided to buy it.  We loved the gas mileage (38 MPG) and Cliff loved its get-up-and-go.  In the 33 months we leased it, we only put about 25,000 miles on it.  Cliff's biggest problem with it was that it was so low to the ground, he had difficulty getting in and out of it.  But I was content with it... of course, I don't drive.  

When we bought it, we got it for about $8,000 less that it would have if we hadn't been leasing it... toward the end we were getting emails making us very nice offers; we paid cash, because we figured we didn't need any more payments.  It was a good deal, if you don't count the $250 monthly we paid Honda Finance for 33 months of leasing it... money, by the way, we really didn't miss each month.

Cliff really would love to have one of those big fancy pickup trucks, but we don't have that kind of dough.  One evening the oldest grandson came over and he and his grandpa got to talking about trucks and their ridiculous prices.  Arick asked him if he could settle for a small truck.  I don't recall how the whole conversation went, but Arick told Cliff he knew people who had one and really liked it.  

Yesterday morning I looked in Consumer Reports to see what they said about small trucks.  They seemed to think the Ford Maverick was a good little truck.  I did some googling and found out Ford isn't even taking orders for them because they can't make them fast enough.  Just our luck.  

We were planning to go grocery shopping, so we looked at the websites of local Ford dealers and found one slightly used Maverick available in Blue Springs.  We decided to drive by and take a look at it.  We knew we could get a good trade-in for our almost new Honda, and perhaps it he wanted to buy it, we could get affordable payments.

We have always bought most of our vehicles spur-of-the-moment; At least three of them were chosen by me, looking out the window and saying, "Hey, that's a good-looking used truck!"  We once bought a Cadillac across the river when we stopped to look for a used car and I pointed out a nice one:  "Look at that good-looking car!"  

Cliff almost spit all over himself laughing.  "That's a Cadillac," he told me.  "We can't afford a Cadillac!"  

"Well," I said, "it won't hurt to ask.  After all, it's a used Cadillac."

The fellow who owned that dealership back then told us to drive it home for the night to see how we liked it.  Next morning there was a big puddle of oil on the garage floor, so we sadly took it back and told him about it.  He said if we wanted it, they'd fix the problem.  I don't know how many years we had that car, but we'll never have another car with such a smooth ride; we still talk about those good old days.  We even had a hitch put on it to haul our popup camper.

It was my idea to go looking for a truck; they say history repeats itself, and I guess it's the truth, because it took us the whole day, but we came home with a cute little "truck" that is only four inches longer than our Honda Accord was.  However, it is higher off the ground and has a quieter, more comfortable ride and more head room and foot room.  Cliff likes some of the little bells and whistles it has.  We'll be using more fuel than with the Honda, but not enough to break the bank.  I told them we needed a payment under $350, and ours will be considerably less than that.  It's a 2022 model but has less miles than our Honda did.

That red light looks huge on such a small vehicle!

The end.