Lander Toyota, Blacktown NSW

What process do the Kozinskis follow when they have to buy a car in a week?

Well, you first decide that you like Toyotas (Fremont Toyota in Lander has been really great, and so has our RAV) and research them; then you go to sit in one, to see if the little thing fits all of us, keeping in mind that at least one of them will be expanding in size; you look up dealerships closest to Old Toongabbie, NSW and keep researching, because you wonder why "Lander Toyota" keeps popping up as the closest dealer to you...you then, out of curiosity, click on it and find that it is indeed here in Australia, just down the road in Blacktown.

You decide it's just too odd to be true, so you travel there and look at little cars that get pretty good L/100 km (and you are very honest that you have no idea what that means, in applied life); you start with a three-door Yaris but it is too small; you then spot a hot-pink Yaris in the corner.

We've been feeling kind of cheeky. We think for a minute about driving a hot-pink Yaris around. It isn't that I really like the color: It is that I wouldn't consider it in Lander, but here? When you are on a new planet, the same constrictions don't seem to apply. Flawed thinking; maybe jetlag lag. Thaddeus very seriously says, "Well, if you like it."

Barry the salesman looks at him sideways: "Yew re naught gawing ta dryve thet?"

"I'm secure in my manhood," says Thaddeus and laughs. Barry laughs, too. Why are they laughing? Are they secure or not?

We find a nice, white Corolla that is only slightly used...I knew I wanted to buy from a Toyota dealer, and nothing seriously used, since I have heard that repair costs here are outrageous. The only super-used car I ever regretted was a little Astin-Martin in Santa Barbara. My stupid boyfriend at the time talked me out of it. Without a ring on my finger. What was I thinking? Astin-Martin should have won out over that guy.

But, back in the present: So, better to spend the money up front and save some of the trouble. And, we are city folk now, and so a little zipper car works, and isn't 27K like the RAVs here.

We spent four hours there. The kids, I'm sure, cleaned out their snacks and espresso machine while we sat in the office. It was probably a pastry-death scene but I was, honestly, too tired to look (5pm is 10 pm).  I remember the days of little children; the last time we bought a car and had to sit in a dealership like this, they were three, five, and seven. This was much nicer. They didn't complain at all, but actually participated in the decision. I wanted the little grey one--lots of zip--but they helped me see that climbing over seats just for zip wasn't the best idea. Kids help you be less selfish, sometimes; other times, they help you be more selfish ("Leave me alone you beasts!").

The paperwork in any move situation is stressful, but there seems to be more of it here--copies of this and that--and I think it just might be because we have no address, no credit score, no records in their government system--we are a people without a history here.

So I'm not going to say, like Bilbo, one of my favorite lines of the first Hobbit: "Well, the worst part's over," because we've got to find a house now, and we haven't yet even picked up the car yet. They've got to establish a kind of story for us in numbers.