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Please prepare yourself for something that may actually be unprecedented in all the 11 years I've been blog-writing: I am going to attempt to be helpful.

As an aside, holy fuck, I just realize I've been blogging off and on (mostly fucking on, my God) since 2004, which is ELEVEN YEARS.* There's probably some effort I could put in to figure out how many words I've published for no compensation and then do some division to figure out how many entire books' worth of material that is, but I think I can arrive at suicidal despair without having it be so blatantly self-inflicted or include so much math, thanks very much.

Let's be clear, this is not me deciding I'm actually qualified to tell anyone else how to do anything. There are only a few things I know how to do well enough to justify any kind of advice, and most of those are the types of things a gentleman doesn't speak about publicly as they are reserved for tender moments alone with my lady-companion.**

Before I begin, I should say that I don't know if this counts as a "life hack," that term the kids are using these days where they take a regular thing and do it slightly differently and call it inspirational, like pudding shots instead of Jello shots or using those bread-bag twisty-ties as nose-rings and keychains at the same time or some shit. This is just a thing I did, which tens of thousands of people do daily in this country with little to no controversy nor congratulations, but I've got this weekly writing obligation, so it counts as a noteworthy achievement. Watch: note, note, note... See? Nothing you can do to stop me.

Now follow me, won't you? And learn:

How to Buy a Car

(Not a poem)

1) Have a car in need of replacement, like maybe for instance one you've had for 8+ years and carries near-enough-as-makes-no-difference 200,000 miles on it. An acceptable alternative here would be "have no car to start with," but I'm making the flattering assumption that you're just starting out in life or recovering from a financial setback and not a smug hipster who objects to internal combustion engines as a statement of environmental moral superiority, but also un-ironically makes their own charcoal. Stop being that person. You're not saving any trees by having to bum rides. You're just a burden to your friends. And their cars.

2) Do internet research! In my case, this means go to the Kelley Blue Book site, start the pricing process, become overwhelmed by the number of options you have to account for (do I have to know right now if I'd take a leather-wrapped steering wheel?), spend the next four hours watching YouTube videos of gorillas trying to talk like people.

3) Go to a dealership and meet with an actual car dealer. Note however, AND THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING, do not under any circumstances buy a car from this person. Feel free to try out some prices, some negotiating tactics, rage-control as another human lies repeatedly to your face and even, if you're feeling saucy, your British Geordie accent. If you do the last one, by the time you leave, you can at least say you did something useful. Also: maybe test-drive a thing. But definitely leave in the car you arrived in.

4) Contemplate the nature of human cruelty and the estrangement of man from his fellow man. Maybe read some Camus. Call a trusted neighbor or a friend to come over and hide all the sharp things in your house while you're locked safely inside the suitcase you never use as much as you'd hoped when you bought it right after college, way in the back of your closet. Count to 6,000 and then cautiously emerge, reborn. Allow yourself to be dazzled by sunlight.

5) Find the make and model of the car you want and visit dealership websites from the comfort of your home. Write emails to all the dealers within the range you could conceivably consider driving to in order to actually pick up your purchase or set fire to the sales office in the dead of night. Include an opening price to negotiate well under what they'd likely reasonably accept, using a specific car they have on their lot (as posted on their website). Use seemingly sophisticated jargon like "tax and title" and "out-the-door price" just enough for them to suspect that maybe you aren't completely unsure of what it is you're attempting to do. Also suggest that in your past that maybe you killed a guy. It helps if you're seen as unpredictable.

6) Tell lies. This is important. Know absolutely that they're definitely lying to you about something along the way, so this isn't about morality. One guy insisted that any price would have to include the $900 LoJack system because "it can't be uninstalled." Try to keep your lies car-related, though. Telling a car dealer that your mother was part fish and that you can breathe for a limited time underwater is interesting, but not helpful. Tell Dealer A that the price they're offering is "competitive, but not yet in the top two" and could they maybe do a little better? The "little better" should have to do with price, but if you want to make it also about their diction and presentational style, you can fold that in as well if you like, depending on how much of a dick you feel like being.

7) As long as they don't ask for written proof of other better offers (one guy did... I panicked and pretended for an email or two that I couldn't speak English, which in retrospect was not as immediately credible as I'd hoped 15 emails in), keep up the bidding war for as long as the integrity of your human soul will allow. And then tell one lucky sod you're going to buy a car from them.

8) Arrive at the dealership. Sign papers without any more goddamned haggling. Drink the free water they offer you during the signing process. Drink the free cappuccino they offer you after you've signed the paperwork. Drive away.

9) Get in bed with the new-car smell still on your skin. Sleep through the first nauseous wave of buyer's remorse. Wake up refreshed knowing: you've consumed. You're an American.

And that's it. That's how you scoot around in a 2015 Mini Cooper Countryman, an automobile that can only be described as "adorable." Perfect for a 41-year-old man driving around teenage boys primarily. And may be a little smaller than requirements. But the point here is not the subjectivity of my judgment but rather the objective triumph of fact, transmitted to you in the above lesson: I bought a car. By myself. With zero calls to my dad. Which leads me to next week's lesson: a practical guide to getting a drunk parent to hang up the phone.

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*Note that I did just actually check, and it's only MOSTLY unprecedented for me to attempt to be helpful. Actual helpfulness though? Still a clean sheet there. No credible danger of breaking that streak here really.

**Mostly this involves interacting with things on high shelves. She's not a tall person. Wait, what did you think I meant? Pervert. I mean, yes, but still, you have a filthy gutter-mind.