Tyson’s Corner 

  
Now there was a big Kafuffle about buying cars in Loudoun County. 

The word was Tyson’s Corner, which I logically envisaged was literally a corner with a few car yards on it.  Well, what else would it be?  I mean, who would call a whole town, ‘Tyson’s Corner’?  Anyway, it was south from Leesburg and closer to Washington, and I figured like this: Surely the closer one went to Washington the more expensive cars were likely to be, business goes where the money is…  I couldn’t realistically go North or I’d be in Pennsylvania so I decided to go West in search of a car, so I jumped onto Route 7 and I drove over the Shenandoah river, resisted the temptation to break out into ‘Country Roads’ and I finally arrived at Winchester, where I stumbled into the first car yard I saw, and it was called Clarke’s Used Cars.  No sooner had I parked the rental than I met a guy called Wayne, who must have been the model for the stereotype of the used car salesman. 

  He said to me, “Hi, my name’s Wayne, are yawl interested in buying a car?”

  “Yes certainly sir,” I said, “but now I can’t spend too much you know.”  Well he laughed that nervous laugh that used car salesmen make when they know they are going to rob you blind.  He said that he had some reliable 2^nd hand Dodge Neons. 

  “Now that’s an oxymoron in itself Wayne,” I replied as I informed him that it was my experience, in Australia, that one doesn’t use ‘Neon’ and ‘Reliable’ in the same sentence.  A cultural difference here, I actually said, “Neons in Australia are a heap of shit!”  Wayne said that, yes, they were a heap of ‘stuff’ in USA also but that problem had been fixed.’  I mumbled my disbelief, but when he mentioned some nice cheap cars priced at only $8,000, I said, “Whoa there mate whoa!, I am not spending a cent over $3000 and cash at that,” so he says he has nothing for that price.