From the Department of Ethics: The Used Car Salesman

Okay, I just wrote you to ask you a question about my 1991 Metro Geo convertible. I just could not resist telling you a story about this car. I bought this car in 1995 after selling my 1994 Honda Accord EX.

I used to be an emergency room doctor and my husband and I had just bought a home close to my work. I decided it was silly to pay $400-a-month car payments so I sold the Honda. I took the money we had from the sale of the Honda and decided to buy a little, cheap convertible.

Okay, so we went looking and in our hunt we pulled into a used-car lot because there was a yellow Mustang convertible. I got out of the car but my husband refused to get out. The salesman comes up and says, "Great little car, that would make you a nice little car to drive."

Well, while my husband is yelling at me, "It's a piece of junk," the salesman gets into the car to start it and it won't start; he couldn't find the jumper cables and continued to say what a nice little car it was.

This salesman was around 50ish, about 100 pounds overweight and chain smoking all the while he tried to start the car. I finally heeded my husband's yells and left the car lot. Two days later I am sitting at my desk and the nurse comes in to tell me there is a patient to be seen in the cardiac room; a man with chest pain. I walk into the room and there lies the used-car salesman.

The first thing that comes out of his mouth is, "Don't buy that Mustang!" No joke.

The nurse looked at me and asked, "Do you know him?" I guess he had some idea that he might be close to meeting his maker and wanted to set the record straight. Either that or he knew I had the jumper cables in this case and he was hopeful I would be able to find them.

He was sent to the cardiologist and underwent open-heart surgery about two days later. This is a poetic lesson for all you used-car salesmen.

Jackie Chollet