Help me Rhonda

As of Monday, I will be the proud owner of a brand spanking new (well, okay, 3 month old) Honda Civic that I really, truly cannot afford.

Last week saw me transitioning through a multitude of emotions (and left my SP and my boyfriend's sister trying to pick up the pieces and reassemble as best possible) and a lot of sleepless nights (I won't even begin to touch on the dreams that I had in those moments where I did achieve some variety of sleep, but needless to say it made me feel pretty uncomfortable, and I don't think objects in my room should really be continuing to talking to me when I do finally wake). I think I had a lot on my mind.

So last Wednesday I exchanged my Rover 214 for £50 and the exterior casing of my CD player stereo (and a few other miscellaneous obligatory car items, one of which appeared to be a PJ and Duncan tape, apparently owned by one of my boyfriend's friends, that I really didn't want but was too embarrassed to leave).

And a few days later I signed away the next three years of my life to repayments for a car that has (most excitingly of all) a bloody big horn in the middle of the steering wheel that even I can manage to hit in time of crisis or severe aggression. Ooh and it doesn't have your normal air conditioning (something that I only managed to vaguely achieved in the Rover by winding the windows down and cranking the stereo to an uncomfortable volume to try and find its way over the noise from vibrating tarmac and hefty exhausts on the motorway) but it has climate control.

And I have no idea what to do with that.

Obviously £50 isn't a substantial dent on any half decent used car down payment, let alone the end result (unless you are purchasing a perfectly good Rover 214 that may, possibly, need a new engine, but its cheaper than monthly payment for those incredibly unsettling china dolls and Diana plates that you get in the back of Take a Break and will make an excellent showpiece for your driveway, perhaps with the dashboard adorned with a variety of exotic orchids, or a daffodil or two).

So how I got from there to parting with a substantial amount of cash that I really do not have for a brand new car was the reason I spent a lot of time blubbing last week (instead of blogging).

My sleepless nights last week were largely caused by the contemplation of parting with vast amounts of cash for a car that may a. be horrifically over priced and/or b. break as soon as I drive it off the forecourt. And, probably most severely of all, the thought that I would have to communicate with a car salesman, and, being as though my knowledge of cars doesn't go much over the vague identification of various 'under the bonnet' oddities (in my new car they are all reassuringly uncolourful and not covered in spewing yellow liquid so I think I'm on to a winner) I'd have to, in effect, somehow bullshit the bullshitter.

This was, I might add, a ridiculous reason to get so unbelievably worked up to any grounded human. But, considering recent unfortunate circumstances, my hinges have been in need of a little tightening and my emotional sanity has needed confining to a padded room to have a long, hard think.

And I don't deal with stress well. At all. On any level.

Nor do I deal with parting with vast quantities of cash. Nor do I understand cars.

Not exactly a winning combination for a successful car purchase.

So, after sitting in every conceivable make of 5 door small family sized hatchback that exists in a used car salesman with my SP, I decided that the pros of having a new car vastly outweighed how irritating I was becoming (even to myself) on the topic of 'used car'.

And so I ended up in a car salesroom last Sunday, exchanging vaguely knowledgeable banter with a salesman while my boyfriend's sister, who had somehow landed the esteemed task of accompanying me, was attempting to nurse her hangover with vast quantities of water from the cooler and freeze her brain beneath the air conditioning.

Apparently I did, in fact, sound like I knew what I was talking about, at least according to my boyfriend's sister.

This may be partly because, whilst a Top Gear viewer like myself, her understanding of cars ends around about where my does (her contribution was that she liked the colour and the back seats were comfortable, even to someone who felt like their brain was slowly being mutilated with a spoon). Or this may be because I liked the website (oh they know how to appeal to the Flash geek).

Whatever I managed to extract from my mouth that day (including during the test drive, which from my perspective was an utterly pointless exercise as I was so utterly terrified of breaking one of the gadgets adorning the steering wheel, or crashing spectacularly into the car in front that I paid no attention to how the damn thing actually drove), even on breaking all of the 'buying a new car' rules that I had been laden with by various men, I managed to barter on including a measly £100 road tax into the bargain.

Let the little lady think she's got a deal.

So I signed (shakily) on the dotted line. And then began the naming process.

Well, I'd won on Clover (she would have been a he had my boyfriend had his way, and I would have been driving around in Roger). And seeing as my boyfriend's sister also suggested the same name (which would have been a little bit weird had there been any other female names to rhyme with either Honda or Civic), she was christened.

Which means that for forever more, my dad will have the opportunity to break into song whenever I mention her name (Beach Boy esque style vocals a bonus).