Almost But Not Quite a Lemon.
When we first made the move to the suburbs from the city, my husband and I prided ourselves on the proximity of our house to public transportation – I took the T into Boston, and it was fine to share a car. We were mobile, young, and both worked outside of the home.
Fast forward to the birth of our first child, my husband was gone all day – most importantly, with the car – and we realized we needed a second car. We went to our local auto dealership with our three month old (always a good idea for maximum focus) and negotiated a deal for a lovely used station wagon with low mileage and a pesky engine light that seemingly always flickered and then stayed on. The dealership promised to fix the light, and while I may have had a fair amount of spit up on my shirt by the time we signed the papers, sign we did.
That night at home during the usual 3 AM feeding, I realized I was concerned about the cost and the dependability of the car. What about that engine light? What if something was really wrong with the car? Would I know or just assume the engine light was faulty? I grabbed a legal pad and began scribbling. Finally, exhausted, I finished my work and baby and I went back to bed.
When my husband woke up the next morning (both baby and I were still fast asleep), he found a three page analysis of why we should buy out the lease of our existing car instead of the station wagon with the wonky engine light. It was in a Pro/Con format (as I was taught, thank you Dad), and I even ran numbers. And because I never run numbers, or even really, make lists, my husband knew this was serious. Pretty much I had reasoned that our existing car was a known entity with a known record, and the newish car a sort of scary unknown vortex of breakdowns and hefty repair costs (this was before sites like CarFax, people).
My husband agreed with me and while we were a little embarrassed (well, I was), we cancelled the sale of the car (which you can legally do – here is the info) and bought out the lease of our car.
That car ran like a top and was great until we had two little ones, a more often than not messy dog, and needed more room, and we finally did end up with a station wagon (named Mommy Car) 
which I drove for the next eleven years. So my #switchersremorse was buying a car and then un-buying the same car within 24 hours. You can change your mind. Sometimes it’s easier than you think.
