The Tenth Circle of Hell (or Dante and Virgil Buy a Car)

“No pressure,” said the car salesman, his teeth gleaming in the sun. “I don’t like putting pressure on people.”

The dictionary salesman use is obviously quite different from the one the rest of us suckers people read. There was sweating and gnashing of teeth and he was going to fight to get us the deal we wanted. Of course he was, wink, wink. So off he went to see the manager.

Ah but the manager. (Sigh) The manager just wouldn’t budge. (Sigh) The salesman was crestfallen. His sadness looked suspiciously like a surpressed snigger. Ah, but wait! He was sure that he could get a smaller discount. So off he went again in pursuit of his manager.

He returned shaking his head. Oh, how he had tried. But the manager (gnashing of teeth), the manager was not going to move on this.

To be fair, it was a good enough deal for us. We just don’t have the haggling gene and traipsing around car yards to dance with the various salesdevilsmen is a a truly bleak prospect. So we accepted the deal.

Now it’s on to the eleventh circle of hell. We have to discuss a car loan with the bank.