{"id":75,"date":"2011-10-20T22:18:00","date_gmt":"2011-10-20T22:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nosmallthing.net\/main\/?p=75"},"modified":"2021-05-08T14:19:19","modified_gmt":"2021-05-08T14:19:19","slug":"upgrades","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nosmallthing.net\/main\/upgrades\/","title":{"rendered":"Upgrades"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>
\nWe\u2019ve all experienced the thrill of an unexpected upgrade, right? Perhaps, your airline overbooked and booted you up to the front cabin where you didn\u2019t have to fold your knees like a Gumby doll all the way to Seattle. Or maybe a retailer gave you a higher quality version of an out of stock item at the same price, or maybe a hotel chain upgraded you to a room with a king at no extra charge.<\/p>\n

But how about an upgrade in Fahrvergn\u00fcgen?<\/p>\n

Three weeks ago, my trusty \u201995 Honda Civic was stolen\u2026right from the street where I live, only hours after a particularly difficult workday, only days after I put in $300 to replace my front brakes and change the oil.<\/p>\n

I thought I was going mad as I walked up and down the block where I knew I left it. First, I cruised surrounding blocks by foot then I drove around a wider swatch of my neighborhood with two different people until I gave up hope of finding it. As a fifteen year-old car, while it had a lot of life left in it, I only carried liability coverage and was not entitled to any insurance compensation for the loss. As I will often do, I tried to think of some positives in the situation.<\/p>\n

Maybe the car had mechanical problems that I hadn\u2019t identified, and its loss might have saved my life. I entertained this thought. Or maybe I had simply finished my karma with the vehicle as my primary way of getting around in the world. The hood and grill featured mismatching parts where they were repaired after separate accidents. I would think about the car\u2019s many hurts every time I scanned a street or parking lot looking for my wheels and spied its crooked smile above the concrete.<\/p>\n

I tried to remain upbeat as I got flung into the reality of car shopping, for the most part an unhappy experience. I felt off balance by the swirl of \u201cDon\u2019t worry, we\u2019ll make a deal\u201d pitches and felt invisible to the salespeople who preferred addressing the male companion I brought along on all car subjects except color. Then I landed in Fahrvergn\u00fcgen heaven. I recalled VW\u2019s old ad campaign about driving pleasure and it seemed to apply to their customer oriented approach to selling cars as well.<\/p>\n

After several anxiety filled days of pushy salespeople and test driving cars where I had to re-discover where they placed the wiper controls (Why don\u2019t all cars have these things in the same place?), I decided on a Volkswagen Jetta. Before making the decision I had to grapple with some entrenched thought patterns. When it came to cars, I had been pretty well indoctrinated in the belief, \u201cIn Japan We Trust,\u201d and I couldn\u2019t help but imagine the scorn of relatives and archetypal ancestors intoning, \u201cHow could you buy a German car after what those people did to Uncle Jack?\u201d<\/p>\n

But the car felt safe and solid and fun to drive. The salesman was sympathetic to my situation and didn\u2019t try to sell me more car than what I wanted or needed. The dealership was reasonably close by so service would be easy to arrange should I need it. They even offered unlimited car washes for the life of the car.<\/p>\n

I thought the hard work, the decision-making, was over, but, it turned out there was back and forthing yet to be done. This time, the dealer had to put in extra duty. Turned out that the model, color and option package I wanted was very popular. After hours of searching online, scanning inventories at dealerships in three states, City Volkswagen could not find a single silver Jetta S-type. And, as far as a date for replenishing stock was concerned, new cars only showed up as \u201cin transit\u201d on their inventory lists. Whether taking a slow boat from Stuttgart or an even slower train trip from Juarez, delivery was a real X factor.<\/p>\n

After some more searching and more negotiating, they found a silver Jetta for me about thirty miles away, but it had a moon roof and cruise control, nice features that I didn\u2019t bother looking at because I didn\u2019t actually need them. City Volkswagen decided to give me this nicer model at the same price we agreed on for the basic S-type.<\/p>\n

Just as I try to figure out why I experience what seems to be bad luck, I couldn\u2019t help but contemplate my good fortune on this. In some way it felt like I was being rewarded for making up my own mind. A simple thing, I guess, but my friends had opinions on what kind of car would be a good choice. My neighbors had opinions. J.D. Power & Associates had opinions. But in the end, I chose what felt best when I sat behind the wheel.<\/p>\n

A Fahrvergn\u00fcgen upgrade is no small thing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We\u2019ve all experienced the thrill of an unexpected upgrade, right? Perhaps, your airline overbooked and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","grateful-dozen-winning-luck"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nUpgrades – No Small Thing<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nosmallthing.net\/main\/upgrades\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Upgrades – No Small Thing\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"We\u2019ve all experienced the thrill of an unexpected upgrade, right? 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