The Three Minute Car Purchase

“Should I buy a Tesla?”
“Sure”
** three minutes later **
“Ok, I bought it.” 
“Wait, for real?”

For real.  I bought a Tesla on my phone after a brief conversation with a friend about it. 

What a time to be alive, when you can buy a car on your phone easier than you can order a Starbucks Venti Passion Tea Lemonade with light ice and eight pumps of classic syrup.   In the time that it took you to read this far into this post, I could’ve already bought six Teslas.  Maybe Tesla makes it too easy, but what wasn’t as easy was the journey leading up to this moment.

I bought my first Tesla in 2013 after it made me sick during a test drive, then I bought my second one in 2018, but it had issues so Tesla bought it back from me in 2019, and since then I’ve been driving a Lexus hybrid that my dad loaned me as I figured-out my next move.  While I was immensely grateful to have a reliable car, it was a big adjustment to be thrusted back into the unfamiliar world of oil changes, gas stations, and tune-ups after enjoying six years of electric car driving bliss. 

Most of my life, I’ve lived by the belief that it’s better to have a cool car than a nice place to live because if worse comes to worst, you can sleep in your car, but you can’t drive your house.  But then I smartened-up and decided to save all of my spare money towards buying a house first and leaving the cool car for later.  But then things got hot…literally.

The air conditioner in the car broke in the middle of a heatwave and four mechanics and two Lexus service centers couldn’t figure out how to stop the car from liquifying me into molten lava.  I spent thousands trying to fix the issue to no avail and I couldn’t buy the cool car that I wanted because I didn’t buy the house yet!  What was a Geremy supposed to do?!? 

I was driving my mobile fireplace in the mall parking lot one day when I saw the most beautiful Tesla that I’ve ever seen.  It was a black Tesla Model X with black wheels.  In that moment, I wanted that car more than I wanted a Talkboy in 1994 after Home Alone 2 came out!  I thought, “God, is this Tesla a sign that I should buy one?”  The next day I convinced myself to order the car and trust that I’d own a house before the car was delivered.  But first I needed to put my decision to the test. 

My test was to ask two of my friends if I should buy a Tesla and if they said yes then I’d do it. When I asked, the answer was an incredulous, “sure.”  Then I asked my sister and the answer was “yes, do it!”  So I quickly did it before anyone realized that I was serious and changed their mind.  I ordered the exact Tesla Model X that I saw the day before with all of the options that were available. 

Two months later, I closed on my house and a two months after owning the house my car was built and delivered.  I could finally stop driving a mobile sauna because I got my beloved Tesla and the air conditioner worked! 

Within 24 hours of getting the car, I installed 22 inch wheels on it and got the windows tinted dark enough that people can’t see me emphatically singing while driving.  Then I got a cool charging station installed in the garage and blacked-out all of the chrome trim on the car.  All of this happened in August 2020 and now that it’s a year and a half later, I still love the car and I remain shocked and elated that everything worked out the way that it was supposed to.  With a little delay and a little sacrifice, I now own my favorite car that I’ve ever owned.

Its name is Hjackie.
The “H” is silent.
Big Blacky Hjackie.