Thursday, November 05, 2015

Guilt Trip

I'm so glad I finally told you about my new Beverly Hills home! I've been dying to do so for months! But I have to blog in chronological order. Thanks for the comments and the congratulatory notes, they mean a lot to me.

I moved in on the 6th of April, my birthday is on the 10th. Best birthday gift I could ever have! Peace of mind! Just freedom and fulfillment of a dream. Who knew that a girl from a small town in Africa would live in this amazing neighborhood? So, kids, dream and dream big! I'm gonna let you in on a secret: when I decided I want to live in Beverly Hills, I had never actually set foot here at all! I had passed by bus but that's it! But I managed to make it as real as possible in my head until it became a reality in real life. It just goes to show you! Another side note: I just updated my vision board. It's the most fun to take off things from your vision board because you have achieved them. Do yourself a favor, give yourself the gift of a dream come true this Christmas and make a Vision board asap if you haven't got one yet, put it somewhere you can see it all the time, make time to look at it whenever you can and tune the whole world out, let it be just you and your dreams/desires, feel yourself living the life you want to live. Actually feel it! You will know when you're doing it right, you will have the most exciting feeling ever, an overwhelming feeling of hope or knowing for sure that whatever you want, you can have! Do that as often as possible. Try not to look at it when you are not in a good mood. Figure out ways to lift up your mood from the inside out, as opposed to making it someone else's job to make you happy. When you can do that, you have succeeded in doing something a lot of people may never get an opportunity to do. And when you can do that, you will realise that you can't blame someone else for how you feel. It's all entirely up to you! Let me know how it goes, Facebook - Babalwa Brook. Twitter/Instagram: thelovelybrook or here on the blog.

The weekend before I found my apartment I had taken Carly to a dealership in Culver City. I practically forced her to go and test drive a car she kinda was interested in. It was a Black Beetle or Bug depending on where you're from. She was obsessed with buying a white car. I wonder why? Side note: My car is white, side eye! We had seen a really pretty white Beetle before that. She wanted me to take her to the Valley to test drive it. I refused merely because I didn't feel like it. She offered to gas the car up. I told her to use that money to get Uber. She refused. Oh well! The car was really pretty, and it was cheap. The seller said he was relocating and wanted to get rid of it ASAP. Carly didn't have cash. She tried to haggle the car over the phone. The guy had posted that the price was negotiable. When Carly tried to negotiate, it turned out it wasn't as negotiable as she thought. She basically wanted the car for free, if it were up to her. Wouldn't we all like to get free cars? Sadly, life is not the Oprah show. Well, it kinda is for me. I tend to get a lot of things for free. All I do is win! I will tell you more about that as we go along, if you have been following my story for a while, you probably know about some of my winnings. I won something just yesterday! Details later!

I told Carly that you don't negotiate over the phone, no one will take you seriously if you do that. You have to show up with cash in hand or tell them that you will get them a cashiers check and then they will take you seriously! I mean, do I have to teach you everything? Clearly, yes! She still tried to negotiate, the guy gave her $200 discount. She wanted about $1500. I know! When she asked me if I thought the guy would go that low, I told her to call him and ask. I guess that's why she called him. I also asked her if she would go that low. She told me she would, I told her to stop lying!

The guy ended up selling the car. I could see that Carly was trying to make me feel bad for not taking her there but this is The Valley in LA. I took the bus from Vegas to come buy my car in LA, I never guilt tripped anyone into doing me favors. Then I still took the train, bus, train and another bus or something. I told that story here, if you haven't read that entry. I wasn't going to be guilt tripped by someone into driving them around as if they contributed in my getting my car. Heck naw! That's why I insisted in paying her rent so that I wouldn't be her slave.

Back to the black beetle story, I took her to Culver City. She wasn't feeling the black car, she told me she would regret it forever if she bought it. I told her she didn't have to commit to anything, I was just saying she needed to check it out. She had been looking for a car for weeks, it was about time she went to test drive one, I thought. We got there and she started shaking. She fell in love with the car immediately she laid her eyes on it. Thank Goodness! She told me, "Brook! This is it!" I was happy she found her car. I told her as hard as it was, she had to look for faults in the car and negotiate based on them. She told me to help her, she didn't know what to look at. You know, because that's Rocket Science. I didn't want to seem like I was jealous, pointing out faults in her car. Plus, knowing her, she would just change her mind about the whole thing. She's very indecisive.

I told her that the tires, for one, were very smooth, she could get fined if caught driving around with those. She looked for more stuff but there wasn't much, really. She didn't like that because that meant paying more for the car. I told her the up side to that was that her car was in mint condition. She took it for a test drive. She loved everything about it. We then went to the office to negotiate. She tried to stay behind so that auntie Brook can do all the talking. I took out my phone and got busy on social media. Plus, the guy was Russian, so I used my 12 dozen Russian words and flirted with him a little. For fun. It turned out he wasn't even the main guy to negotiate with, he was the mechanic, the main guy had said he was going to wait for us. He didn't. Or well. Carly had to fill out paperwork, the dealership was going to finance the car for her as well. When she tried to negotiate with the mechanic, the mechanic guy told her that she didn't even have cash. He was like, "What kind of negotiations are these? You don't even have a dime on you! You still want me to help you finance the car!" I had to bite my cheek to stop from smiling because I had told her the same thing that you don't negotiate just to negotiate.

The mechanic told her if she got approved, he would change the tires for her but if she needed more of a discount to call the boss. She called the boss the following day, he told her sorry, not negotiable. Take it or leave it. I moved out while they were still processing the financing part. When I told her I got the place, she told me that it was a great week for us, I got my apartment, maybe she was going to get her car too. I was like, I hope so, but I really didn't feel like talking about her in that moment. I just wanted to celebrate me for like a split second.

A few days after I moved in, I texted Carly asking for an update on the car. She told me that she was at the 99 cents, grocery shopping. She had already picked up the car. I was like, thanks for calling me as soon as you got the car I practically made you buy! She told me she was going to tell me but she was calling people telling them, then she was going to call me. You know, because I'm not a person! I thought to myself, this chick is a waste of my precious time. I need to block her as soon as possible. I hate to that I didn't have the greatest experience with someone who helped me when I needed it. But you have to save yourself, I can't hold myself hostage for the sake of guilt.

She had called her parents, understandable even though they were not here when I was being pain in the butted by her about the dog on car, they were not the ones who drive her there and forced her to have a look at the car etc etc but I understand why she did. However, she called friends she hadn't talked to in a while to tell them she bought a car but she didn't think to tell me that the purchase went through. She could've even sent me a text.  How would she have felt if she got home one day and I had moved out and didn't tell her? Crazy!

I soon got over that. I had too much to celebrate to worry about that. As it was, I was soaking in my Blue bathtub when I called her. I couldn't be bothered but  I did make a mental note.

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