we bought a car

We bought a car!!!  It's a '97 800cc Maruti hatchback.  Most guys in the US have motorcycles with larger engines but it does the job for us here in the mountains.  We figured out how to get two car seats in the back (probably not the standard design for installation but again, it does the job for us).  

We bought the car from a very honest guy who, we have decided, does not know much about cars (not that I'm a mechanical genius by any means).  He told us that the brakes are very good (he just had new pads installed), the headlights had recently been brightened, but that it did need an alignment.  It had a rattle that came from somewhere underneath which he assured me was not a mechanical issue, just a loose bolt on the muffler.  I was thinking, "if it's just a loose bolt, why don't you simply crawl under there and tighten the thing down?"  I decided to not let it bother me.  We proceeded to the next step which was a test drive.  OH SNAP...a test drive!!??  I had forgotten that when you buy a car you actually have to drive it...and we live in India.  Not wanting to show my hesitation, I grab the key and climbed into the right side of the car (the driver's side) and my new friend sat in the passenger seat.  I got comfortable and did all the things that great drivers do, adjusted the seat, check the mirrors, tried to find the blind spots, you know what I'm talking about.  Anyway, I bought a little time and mustered the courage to back out into the neighborhood street.  I awkwardly drove on the left side of the street and about broke down when we soon came to a confusing (but very normal) intersection.  Where the heck was I supposed to turn?  I quickly made some calculations and made the turn into traffic.  I continued down the road and managed to avoid the cycle rickshaws, cows, pedestrians, and huge Lorie Trucks.  I just              kept telling myself, go left, go left, go left, go left....

We made it back, I bought the car (even with the loose bolt rattle) and we drove it directly to the shop for the alignment that it needed.  You can imagine what happened next...the repair men started finding everything possible wrong with the car.  We ended up being there for about 6 hours and the one thing with the greatest need was...the breaks.  It seemed that everything that they touched broke.  I finally told the guy to stop touching my car so that we could go home.  During our time there Carrie and the kids hung out in the "office car" which is exactly the same make and model as our car only a couple of years newer.  Amazingly, they sat in the back seat of the office car for nearly 6 hours while the repairs were made to our vehicle.  Later we found out that a McDonalds was only about 5 blocks away!