This is a true story about my sister, and it’s a very funny story. However, it’s also a fairly embarrassing story. Therefore, to protect my sister’s anonymity, I will not refer to her by her real name, which is Donna. I will, instead, refer to her by a totally fictional name I’ve just made up, which is Dawnah.

Dawnah bought her car at a dealership about sixty miles away and started having trouble with it within a month. She took it back to the dealership a couple of times for repairs, which was a major inconvenience due to the distance and the time it took to have the work done. When the car acted up a third time, Dawnah called the dealership and spoke to the salesman who’d sold her the car. She told him that she was going to bring the car back a third time and insisted that this time they keep it until it was fixed for good or else replaced. She also insisted that the dealership provide her with something to drive in the meantime. The salesman agreed to everything she asked for.

The next morning, when she got to the dealership, Dawnah was disgusted to learn that the salesman had neglected to arrange for a car to be provided to her while hers was in the shop. This was the last straw. Dawnah had really been through the wringer over this car, and she was furious. She asked to speak to the manager.

The manager apologized all over himself and told her that he would personally, immediately, call the car rental agency down the road and have a rental car delivered to her then and there. He said that a rental agent would deliver the car and that someone from the dealership would then give the rental agent a ride back to the car rental agency. He invited Dawnah to wait in his office while the car was delivered… but by now, she was so angry and indignant that she told him she’d prefer to wait outside. The manager called the car rental agency and told her the make, model, and year of the rental car that was going to be delivered to her… he also told her that it was a blue car.

Waiting outside, Dawnah was so angry that she forgot the make, model, and year of the car. All she was able to remember was that it was a blue car. After quite a few frustrating minutes of waiting, Dawnah saw a blue car pull into the dealership parking lot. This must be the car she was waiting for, she figured. The car was driven by an elderly black gentleman, and he was looking around the lot as he slowly crept toward the entrance. Dawnah presumed that he was looking for her, so she waved to him and he nodded and drove slowly over to where she was standing.

By this point, Dawnah was so frustrated with the dealership that she’d decided that she’d just get in the passenger seat and ride back down to the car rental agency and drop the rental agent off at work again herself. After she’d dropped him off, Dawnah would just leave for home from the rental agency.

When the blue car pulled up for her, Dawnah got in the passenger seat and greeted the elderly black gentleman behind the wheel. Then, she looked around the car and noticed that it wasn’t very clean. There was an empty styrofoam coffee cup in the cup holder and a couple of blankets and a paperback novel in the back seat. The disheveled state of the car was like insult to injury, and Dawnah was just mad enough to say something about it.

“My dear Lord!” she said. “Don’t you think you could have cleaned this thing up a little bit before you drove it down here?!”

The elderly gentleman’s jaw dropped. He blinked at her a couple of times and said “I’m sorry?”

“You should be! This car is filthy!”

The elderly gentleman just looked at her in an apparent state of confusion and fear.

It was at this point that Dawnah noticed that the dealership manager had come outside and was frantically running toward the car, waving his arms, shaking his head, and shouting “NOOOOO!”

By now, you’ve figured out what Dawnah was about to guess… the blue car she’d gotten into was not the car from the rental agency at all. It was another car that the dealership was scheduled to repair that day. The elderly gentleman was not the car rental agent. He was another of the dealership’s customers.

Dawnah saved face the only way she could. She looked at the elderly gentleman one last time, said something like “Hrrmph!” and got out of the car. She shut the door and walked toward the dealership’s manager, who was by now beet red and breaking a sweat.

The manager walked back into the dealership office with Dawnah and explained everything to her. Of course, by now, she’d figured it out on her own.

None of us know what happened to the elderly black gentleman, or if anyone explained to him what had just happened to him. I prefer to believe that he must have thought that the dealership had hired it’s own version of a Wal-Mart greeter… a greeter who was much younger, far less friendly, and a great deal more critical than any greeter Wal-Mart would ever employ.

This is only one of the many embarrassing stories about my sister that I could relate here. I’ll allow a few days, and if she doesn’t get wind of this and come here looking for my head on a spike… and if I get any feedback indicating that anyone enjoyed this story… I may post another.