Ms Cellophane

Today I went through one of my recurring nightmares. I've been having a horrible time ordering my car. I am constantly amazed at my inability to get salespeople to sell me a car I want to buy. They don't need to do the hard sell. I want it. I can afford it. I just want someone to take my order.

Last week I went up to the garage and there were no salespeople, so the trainee took my details and said someone would phone me back on Monday. I would have been happy to wait, but assumed that as he'd said someone would call me back, that would be fine.

On Monday, no-one called. When I phoned them they seemed most uninterested. They asked whether I'd looked on the website to get a price. Erm yes, but the website doesn't take orders, does it? Oh, they can't do that over the phone, I'll have to come in. But if I make an appointment there will definitely be someone to see me. So I arranged to see someone at 11.30 today.

I got to the garage at 11.30 today. I was told the guy I wanted to see was with a customer, but would be with me in 5 minutes. At 12 I started getting pissed off. At 12.30 I spoke to the receptionist again, who said he knew I was there, but she'd try to get someone else to see me as soon as possible.

At 1 I started pacing round the showroom. At 1.15 I was on the verge of walking out.

The problem is that the car I wanted is brand new. I mean brand brand new. I've only ever seen 3 of them, in the showroom. There's no second hand market because even the brand new ones haven't arrived yet to be sold for the first time. It's a franchised dealer or nothing, and this was the franchised dealer. If that was the car I wanted, short of going to another town (on public transport), I had to buy it from them.

I'm not the sort of person who gets irate and hard to ignore. I tend to sit there getting more and more frustrated until I finally walk out. I remember one particularly painful experience in Budapest when I tried to go out for a meal. I travel alone and don't think anything of eating alone. But the waiting staff seemed convinced that I was waiting for someone. No matter how much I tried to get their attention, they wouldn't even bring me a menu. Other customers tried too, and I still got nowhere. Even though the meal was fantastic (and had it not promised to be, I'd have been long gone), the thing I remember is the service, and being ignored, rather than the taste.

It's stupid in a way, I used to spend a lot of time trying to make myself invisible, unobtrusive, on the basis that if people didn't realise I was there they couldn't be deliberately mean to me. And if I really wanted to be noticed, then I could just make more of a fuss. I shouldn't take it personally, it wasn't just me. I saw at least three people walk out of there because no-one was paying them any attention. But still by the end of it I was practically in tears I was so frustrated. I was alternately wondering why I was putting up with it, and then getting pissed off that I couldn't just go down the road to another garage to get the same car.

In the end though, the trainee from last week spotted me. He couldn't actually take my order because he isn't qualified to do the FSA stuff when they try to sell you finance and various bits of insurance, but he actually made an attempt to go through the car options on the computer and get a list of what I wanted for when someone was actually free to take my order. I was pleased to see that even though someone else did the official stuff, it still got counted as his sale because he was the only person in that place who even showed any glimmer of understanding what customer service is.

I just hope the car is worth it! And worth me having this song stuck in my head all day.

If someone stood up in a crowd
And raised his voice up way out loud
And waved his arm and shook his leg
You'd notice him

If someone in the movie show
Yelled "Fire in the second row
This whole place is a powder keg!"
You'd notice him

And even without clucking like a hen
Everyone gets noticed, now and then,
Unless, of course, that personage should be
Invisible, inconsequential me!

Cellophane
Mister Cellophane
Shoulda been my name
Mister Cellophane
'Cause you can look right through me
Walk right by me
And never know I'm there...

I tell ya
Cellophane
Mister Cellophane
Shoulda been my name
Mister Cellophane
'Cause you can look right through me
Walk right by me
And never know I'm there...

Suppose you was a little cat
Residin' in a person's flat
Who fed you fish and scratched your ears?
You'd notice him

Suppose you was a woman, wed
And sleepin' in a double bed
Beside one man, for seven years
You'd notice him

A human being's made of more than air
With all that bulk, you're bound to see him there
Unless that human bein' next to you
Is unimpressive, undistinguished
You know who...

Cellophane
Mister Cellophane
Shoulda been my name
Mister Cellophane
'Cause you can look right through me
Walk right by me
And never know I'm there...
I tell ya
Cellophane
Mister Cellophane
Shoulda been my name
Mister Cellophane
'Cause you can look right through me
Walk right by me
And never know I'm there
Never even know I'm there.

Hope I didn't take up too much of your time.