Living the Dream

It was a wild day on the used car lot. Customers everywhere, shouting, crying, pleading, laughing. Salesman shuffling about, to and fro, shaking hands, faking smiles, sneaking fast food farts. Some asshole forgot to put his jeep in park and it rolled from in between the white lines into a shiny new truck. The crunch was deafening.

Pandamonium.

Inside the showroom, people were bustling around in a fever of excitement and anxiety. Standing up, sitting down, chasing children, shaking hands, spilling coffee. It was a mess.

My customer looked at me from across the table in the midst of the chaos.

“Look kid, I’ll do it for 30 grand,” he said stabbing his finger at the paper.

“I can sell it for 35 thousand and that’s cutting my balls off,” I replied karate chopping the paper.

“Well kid, I gotta go,” the old man said.

“Wait, I can’t just…” I began but before I could say anything more he raised his hand to silence me.

“You book me a hotel room with a jacuzzi and a chocolate cake tonight and I’ll do it for 35.”

“Wait, what?”

“Get me a hotel room with a hot tub and some fuckin chocolate cake and we got ourselves a deal.”

“My desk manager’s already going to take my nuts for doing 35. What makes you think I can swing this?”

“Because if I pay 35 grand for this car my wife will kill me unless I distract her with some romantic sex shit, I’m talking freaky. Now I’m either going to go over there and tell her we’re getting it on VIP style tonight or I’m fucking off. So are we doing this or what?”

“35 grand for the car and a hotel room with a chocolate cake. No hot tub.”

“Fuck you kid. We got a deal.” He spit in his hand and extended it out to me. You gotta be fucking kidding me. I spit in my hand and shook his. He smiled with all seven of his teeth.

“Hell yeah kid, get all the paperwork ready while I go tell the missus the good news. And where’s the shitter?” I pointed to the bathroom down the hall and he was off. Fuck me, I thought.

I grabbed the paperwork and headed to Curtis’s office. I glanced over at my desk manager on the way over and he was glaring at me. Somehow he had overheard the circumstances of my deal over the noise.

Someone popped a balloon across the room and a little boy shrieked. The legs of a chair at the table next to me gave out under the weight of an extremely large man and as gravity went to work he took the table down with him spilling water, coffee, and paperwork everywhere. A necessary distraction sent to me by the car gods no doubt. I slipped into Curtis’s office.

“Man, I have a deal with the craziest old man and his wife on this Chevy for you to run. Look I promised him a hotel room and a chocolate cake if he did the deal for 35 so good luck getting him to buy a warranty.”

Curtis slowly turned his chair around to face me. He eyes bulging and his pupils like saucers. He was smiling ear to ear.

“My grandmother was a robot,” he said without blinking, cocking his head to one side.

“Goddamnit really,” I said, “at a time like this?” He was as high as a kite. He began to chuckle uncontrollably.

“You know I didn’t think we would be busy today. I really didn’t think we would be busy at all. So I ate a few mushrooms. And now look at me. Look at us. Look at them,” he gestured to my customers who were outside smoking cigarettes. “He’s going to cover that old lady in chocolate cake tonight and it’s all because of you. How exciting. Go get them and bring them in, I’m ready.”

“You haven’t even looked at their paperwork yet. Oh my god Curtis, can you please, for the love of everything holy, please don’t fuck this up.”

“Can I ask you a question?”

“What?”

“Who wouldn’t want to go outside in the rain, with me?” Curtis began to laugh uncontrollably again.

Why is this happening to me?

I tossed the paperwork on his desk and went outside to retrieve the old man and his wife. I could feel my phone vibrate in my pocket, I took it out and looked. It was Ann, my girlfriend.

Hows your day? her text said.

Living the dream babe, I replied.

As I walked over to the old man his wife jumped up and threw her arms around him. He obviously just broke the news about his plans for them tonight. I shuddered at the thought.

As he saw me coming he flashed a grin and a wink. I smiled the best fake smile I could muster.

I don’t think I’ve had chocolate cake since.

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