#113. or, ......and then we did a lot of driving for nothing

  Last week I traded my old combine in on a new one. It's not the new, new one. The one with new combine smell and plastic still on the seat. As much as I would dearly love to slide my pale farmer ass behind the wheel of that little beauty, it costs a third of a million dollars and that's somewhat out of my price range.  The one I can afford is the new, used one. It's somewhere around half the cost of the new, new one so I have to buy the new combine smell air freshener to mask the smell of old grain dust and be happy about financing another piece of equipment.

  Except, it's Sunday morning and I have yet to actually SEE my fricken new, used combine!

  During the summer, I made a mention to my salesman that I was interested in purchasing a new header for my old combine. That's the attachment on the front of my combine that allows me to cut the standing grain and combine it all in one process. The one I have is undersized and was not utilizing the combine that I have to it's fullest potential. The reason I approached my salesman in the summer to try to find me this, is because the closer we get to harvest, the less chance there is of anything being available. I wanted to avoid that. So, last week, and still no header, I talked to my salesman again and the header he's got for me is a complete PIECE. OF. SHIT!

  So, because I'm an easy sell, and like shiny new things, he convinces me what I really need is a brand new, used combine. Thursday morning, he called me to say the exact new, used combine, that would be perfect for me just became available. Like overnight! Now my dealership isn't JUST my dealership. It covers a good deal of the center of the province that I live in. There's a bunch of stores in towns and cities scattered about, so wherever you live, a tractor store isn't too far away. Each store generally has a couple salesmen. So it's not quite like going in to buy a new, used car off the lot. Any salesman can sell any piece of equipment from any of those dealerships at any time. Essentially, you could be sitting in the cab of a combine, trying to make the decision on whether or not to take on more debt load on this particular unit, while 200 miles away, 13 other  farmers are potentially signing the papers and buying it out from under you, without your knowledge, while you waffle. It SUCKS! I can't tell you how much I hate trying to make a deal this way.

  Anyways, Thursday morning, my salesman says we should go immediately to look at this combine before it gets sold. It's 2 hours away, so off we go. Along the way, we're still trying to find a new header, because now, with a bigger combine, my old one is REALLY undersized so I still need the header. The header which I originally wanted to buy, but got up-sold into a new combine instead. As we're passing a dealership along the way, he's talking on the speaker phone to another salesman about any headers available there, and my salesman mentions that we're headed to look at this combine. The guy on the other end of the line says it's not there! Apparently it's on a truck someplace headed to one of the two dealerships within easy driving distance of my home. It will be there by morning. So we turn around and go home.

  In the mean time, I pretty much have to commit to this unit, that I haven't seen yet, because "it's harvest season" and these units disappear rather quickly.

  Friday morning, my salesman calls and says I should meet him at this other dealership, near my home to look over the combine. I drive there, no combine. Well, that's not exactly true,the one that came overnight was the wrong one but a different salesman  has already sold this wrong combine. They make some phone calls, and it's determined that MY combine is on a different truck, somewhere on route to my dealership. It will be there Saturday morning. Again I drive home without seeing this combine I've bought.

  Saturday morning, I purposely waited a while to be sure they had time for my combine to arrive and get unloaded. I drive to town, NO FRICKEN COMBINE!!!

   It seems, someone has lost what is almost without question the largest piece of farm equipment that you can buy. How the hell does that happen? They tell me it should show up on Monday. This is turning into a complete nightmare. Without, of course the REE REE REE, shower curtain scene.

   ................if it doesn't show up on Monday, I'm going to look at red combines!


   I am submitting this post to Dude write this week. It's where guy bloggers come together to submit posts, that get voted on from Sunday to Tuesday evening to see whose was most popular. I encourage you to pop over and take a look at them and maybe come back and vote on three of your favorites. 
You can get there by clicking on THIS LINK.