Well, lots of money has come and gone, although at this stage no actual van
has materialised but more on that shortly.
A word on ‘Money In’. Unfortunately it’s often easier to access finance than
is good for ones soul, especially if one ‘owns’ a house. The banks are like
tipsy adolescents in their rash readiness to dish out another whopping great chunk
of your ‘equity’.
Bank Manager says, ‘’ow mush wooard yous ak-shually be reshquiring?’
To which I replied ‘my initial estimation of the financial resource
demand is, etc. etc..’
B.M. says ‘yesh! no trubble, hic, too eashy, susch a pleashurrre doin
biz wifsth you.’
Of course B.M. is lovely, professional and not actually drunk at all,
but I say this merely to hint at the enthusiasm banks are prone to when upping
my debt levels.
The next fancy thing banks do these days is sign off all the paper work
via email. Thus I’m sitting at home with a double-shot Barista coffee in hand (can
afford it now with all that money…) I punch a couple of buttons on the Commodore
64 (sorry, really OLD joke) and Bingo I have a bunch of dollars in my account
with more zeros after it than the National Heart Foundation would recommend.
A word on ‘Money Out’. If finance is oft too easy to come by, sadly it’s
Evan easier to have it run through your fingers on the way back out. The story
goes something like this.
Mr van Seller says ‘you’ll need to sign a scrap of paper to confirm you
actual do really want this van’. He emails me the appropriate form which
requires me to print it out, find a pen, find another pen that works, fill in
my Full Name, DoB and What I had for Breakfast two mornings ago, but cheerfully
omits any space for the Make, Model, engine type, choice of transmission,
colour preference and accessories the customer would like. But hey, I know I
can be a bit fussy over details and I’m sure they’ll find something at the car-yard
to give me…!
Then Mr van Seller says ‘now we need cash’. Fair enough, so I said ‘send
me your account details’, and then spent the next 3 or 4 days waiting for an
email. Everyday I give the crank handle a twist and fire up the ‘puter, but no
email, ’til I remember that he’s using my other email address, opps, so I
quickly say ‘sorry about that’, ‘yes I do
still want the van’, ‘no, please don’t cancel my order’, ‘will pay now’, ‘ have
paid now’, etc. etc. in a rapid succession of replies, you know how it goes in
these situations.
Now we’re just waiting. They’ve sold all of stock on the car-yard, they’ve
sold all of stock at the national distribution centre and sold all of stock on
the boat that’s still sailing on the Seven Seas. ‘No probs, we’ll just phone
through to China for you and ask the factory to build another one.’ Nice of
them eh? That’s price of popularity I
guess, or maybe the price of sharp pricing??
Lastly, after several sleepless nights and afternoons worrying that I
shoulda bought a diesel instead of a petrol engine, I came up with this graph above
and I’m sleeping fine again now. Four and half years to break even is good
enough for me.
P.S. the old van finally sold for a song only to have a local come along
about 2 hours later wanting to buy it and offer me a Broadway musical…
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