Mrs. Rousseau

I had been selling cars for maybe a year when I met Mrs. Rousseau. She was a sweet-looking woman about seventy-years-old. If you looked up “grandmother” in a dictionary there might have been a picture of her. She pulled into the lot driving a white, early ’60s Rambler American, the prototypical old lady car of the day.

“I want to buy a car,” she said simply as I greeted her. Her Rambler had not been running well, she explained. She thought it would be best to find a replacement. “A new one,” she emphasized. That was okay with me. After all, putting people into cars was what I did for a living.

Then she did something very disarming, something I remember vividly to this day. She reached into her purse, pulled out a savings account book, and handed it to me. It was her life savings, she said. and she hoped it would be enough.

This was the first and only time in my career that something like this happened to me. I suddenly felt very protective of the woman looking at me with total trust in her eyes. I sat her in my office and with more than a little reluctance opened the book. Grace Rousseau had slightly over $10,000 in her account, an amount, she told me, that she saved over the years. I felt the weight of responsibility fall on my shoulders. The smiling woman sitting before me had given me, a perfect stranger who was barely an adult, an enormous amount of power over her life and future.

I had no trouble finding her a suitable car. She settled on a lime green 1972 Ford Torino sedan. We took it for a ride, and she loved it. All the while she was driving I was doing the mental math. If I remember correctly, the Torino was in the $6000 range. When you added tax and license there would not be much left in that savings account after the deal was completed. A major chunk of her rainy day fund would be gone. I told myself, “This lady shouldn’t be using her savings to buy a new car.”

My dilemma only worsened when I took her old Rambler out to Hal Nelson to have it appraised. It had 28,000 miles on the odometer. After driving the car and giving me a figure of $300, he looked at me and said, “You know, David, there’s nothing really wrong with the car. It only needs a little carburetor work.”

I went back to the sales office with a heavy heart. God knows I wanted to sell a car, but I did not want this lady to blow her money needlessly! She should just get the damn Rambler fixed. How much longer would she be driving anyway? She does not need a new car! The sales manager was my brother, Danny. He was ten years older than me and from my perspective, the most talented and wisest person on the planet. I spilled my guts to him about Mrs. Rousseau.

Danny sat back and listened patiently, and when I was finished he said, “David, you’re absolutely right. She shouldn’t be buying a car. It makes no sense at all. She should fix the Rambler and drive it for the rest of her life.”

A wave of relief washed over me.

“But,” Danny added.

I looked at him curiously. “But? But what?”

“David, once a customer gets it into their mind that they want to buy a car, they will buy a car. It’s inevitable, and there is nothing you can do about it. Yes, you can go back there and give her advice. She will listen and thank you for your help. Then she will get into her Rambler, and drive over to the Dodge dealership next door, and I guarantee you she’ll be driving a new Dart in an hour. That’s just the way it is.”

Properly advised and chastised, I returned to Mrs. Rousseau with the figures. Danny did not try to knock her head off. He gave her a modest discount and the full value for her trade-in. Of course, she immediately agreed. I then went with Mrs. Rousseau to her bank where she withdrew the money for the Torino from her account. I took her back to the store and delivered her new car. I made a nice commission, got a much-needed mark on the board, but I did not feel good about it. My Portuguese guilt, so dutifully taught to me by my mother, lingered.

Over the years I have often thought about Mrs. Rousseau. How much longer did she live? I did a little research. A Grace Rousseau died in the Hayward area in 1985. Was it her? She must have stopped driving years before her death. Did she enjoy her lime green Torino during the time she had left? I hope so.

I learned an important lesson that day. Danny was absolutely right. If I had not sold her the car someone else, maybe someone else more tempted to take advantage of a woman alone, would have done it for me.

I have seen it countless times over my career; people buying cars when they should not. Though I have never encountered anyone else like Grace Rousseau, I witness bad decisions being made over and over again with frightening regularity. I have grown to accept that getting yourself buried in a car or truck is as American as apple pie, but sometimes it is like witnessing a train wreck. I learned long ago that there is nothing I can do about it, even if a part of me is tempted to dispense a little fatherly advice from time to time. I know that if I do not sell them the car, someone else will. Over the years I have had to remind myself over and over that it is not my job to not sell people cars. It is my responsibility to do my job properly--and with as much integrity as I can muster.

After all, I am not a saint. I am a Car Man.


Talk to you later,



David