undersold

I advertise the Jazz on CarSales.com for $12k. Why piss around at $11,990? Who’s fooled by that? I get no nibble in a month, pull the price down to $11.5k. Still nothing. I regard this as undervaluing the car. In the end no enquiry in two months.

So I pull up outside the VW dealer in Ferntree Gully and sidle into the showroom. John, the bloke I deal with, shakes my hand once more, asks for the keys to the Jazz, disappears outside. I’m not wanted out there. I wander in the showroom and out on the forecourt, checking versions on the Caddy I’ll take delivery of next week.

John comes in, says he’s going to get another opinion on my Jazz. That opinion is $6k. No dice.

I detour on my way home, waste time trying to find a parking space at a shopping centre. The young Chinese woman tells me “short staff”, suggests I come back in 45 minutes. Again no dice. My neck and shoulders remain stiff, knotted, unmassaged.

Back home I write invoices for work done in my business, $2.5k’s worth. I’ve worked hard for the money, undersold myself, as usual. But I refuse to undersell my car. Crazy.

I ring a woman in Bendigo, the subject of an article I’m writing for my former employer. We have a pleasant conversation and I email her the finished piece for her approval.

At two I meet my good woman at her bank in Donvale for the fourth time. Today we sign the big one, a loan for $600k. I can hardly believe the amount, but between us we have assets more than enough to secure the loan. Seems I've undersold my value to a bank. Nonetheless, the repayments will keep us busy.

Our lender advises us to come to another appointment, enjoins us to consider insurance for the contingency of one us being unable to pay his way—injured, dead, unemployed.

Back out in the car park we talk about bookings made for a short holiday the week before Christmas; four nights in Port Stephens, somewhere north of Newcastle, otherwise unknown to me. My good woman is a beach person; I’m not. But I defer to her in this. I have no holiday preference other than being with her. The winter holiday alternative is snow. That I won’t do.

I need a holiday. The year has taxed me in ways I never imagined. I’ve worked harder than I could have thought, travelled interstate more that a dozen times.

Rock on.