Buying a Car

Michael And -- what takes a long time will finally be good -- we finally bought a car! After spending several weekends scouring car dealerships to find an affordable used car and getting increasingly annoyed by those sleazy salesmen, I ended up buying the car from some guy at work, to be precise, my boss's boss. It's an eight-year-old black Acura Integra (a better Honda) with a manual transmission, which is very unusual for America since everyone here drives automatics and most Americans can't even operate a stick shift. In San Francisco, that's quite a challenge, as streets with a 20% incline are still considered flat, and if you have to park in a tight spot, the clutch takes a beating.

The mechanic who inspected the car for me also told me that a clutch lasts about 60,000 miles in Silicon Valley and only 20,000 in San Francisco. Angelika was already worried sick, but I promised to give her an intensive "hill start" course over the weekend. One Sunday, we drove to Potrero Hill, and Angelika had to start the car repeatedly on the less busy streets there, first on the gentler slopes, then on the steeper ones, and it worked! The clutch's lifespan is now reduced by about 10,000 miles, but finally she got her San Francisco certificate!

The first accessory I bought was a coffee cup holder, because the car didn't have one, which is actually unusual for American cars, but oh well. Since I usually grab a coffee and a donut from the donut shop around the corner before I drive to work (when I drive), I obviously need a holder for the cup, otherwise the coffee would spill all the time!

The drive takes half an hour, I get on Highway 280 (called "Twoeighty!") right around the corner from us, and then it's a steady 70-mile-per-hour (about 110 km/h) ride while I listen to the station KSJO 92.3, which plays at least one Metallica and one AC/DC song every hour, awesome! This has, of course, led to me, um, well, neglecting my bicycle a bit, which Angelika always teases me about, saying I'm getting fatter, which is absolutely not true, complete nonsense! If the weather is nice and I don't have to move the car for street cleaning, I'll definitely ride my bike again, no question! And I'll sign up for a fitness center soon too. Stay tuned for this report -- in a new episode of this newsletter: "Michael on the Treadmill," stay tuned!

The car also doesn't have any air conditioning, which we'll probably be cursing about in the summer when it gets 100 degrees hot in Wine Country or Silicon Valley, but the main thing is that we have some kind of ride. But the thing has 120 horsepower (that's why I bought it, don't tell anyone)! The license plate currently reads "2ZAP439," but since in America, if you pay $100 a year (which goes to a charitable cause), you can choose your own letter combination, it will probably soon be "PERLMAN" or "PERLPWR." I've already checked, both are available. By the way, the DMV in California isn't clueless either: Since you pay 8.5% sales tax for a car bought from a dealer, but if you buy a car from a private person, this transaction completely bypasses the state, the DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) simply demands the tax when registering the car, no amount of crying and gnashing of teeth will help, the credit card has to come out! Well, so far the little Japanese car is running excellently, I hope it stays with us.