As we walked through the front door it was obvious something was amiss.
Twin No. 1 was in tears.
“How do you open this?” she cried while fumbling with a bag of potato chips.
“Ask your mother; she’s the cook,” we replied.
Twin No. 2 then darted past, carrying a fistful of credit cards.
“Where are you headed?” we demanded.
“To the mall,” she hollered, “There’s no clean clothes in my room.”
“Wait, ask your mother where she hid the laundry,” we bellowed. “She does the wash.”
The Maltese entered the room, his initialed designer bowl clenched firmly in his capped teeth. The bowl was dirty.
“Have your mother clean it, she’s the dishwasher,” we bellowed at the dog.
It was then that we spotted the problem. The plugs had been pulled on the automatic microwave, the automatic dishwasher, the automatic washing machine and automatic dryer, the automatic can opener, the automatic garbage disposal, the automatic remote-control TV and the automatic central air conditioner. Even the antenna on the hand-held phone was pushed down so as to make it inoperable.
No clean clothes, no prepared dinner, no clean dishes to put the food on, even if it had been nuked.
“Sprain your finger, Hon?” we hollered sympathetically while trying to locate the little woman.
Moments later she marched into the room chanting:
“COLA! COLA! COLA!”
“You’ll find it in the self-defrosting fridge behind the automatic ice-cube maker,” we said in a helpful tone.
“Fools,” she stammered. “This is a protest. No clean clothes, no clean dishes, no fat/sodium/cholesterol-free dinner until you raise my COLA.”
Hmmm. No fat/sodium/cholesterol-free food.
“Wait, what do you mean, COLA?” we asked.
“It’s time you made a cost-of-living adjustment!” she screamed. “I work my fingers to the bone and yet not once have you coughed up for COLA.”
“Actually, your fingers wouldn’t have suffered such torture if you had worn gloves before pushing the buttons on all your automatic appliances,” we replied.
“As usual, you aren’t listening,” she said. “Illinois car dealers just got a COLA, so why can’t housewives?”
“So that’s what has you upset. The dealers managed to get a COLA on their documentary fee for doing no more than staying in business another 12 months, and now you expect a similar reward. And, oh, by the way, that’s housepersons,” we corrected the significant other.
In truth, it’s difficult to argue the COLA problem with the wife. If a dealer can get a $40 DOC fee from each and every customer for having one of his or her clerks fold a title, slip it in an envelope and mail it to the secretary of state’s office during his or her eight-hour-a-day, five-day-a-week shift, why can’t the wife expect a little more in her weekly allowance for cooking, washing, sewing, and doctoring an entire family 24 hours a day, seven days a week-even if her weekly allowance has been the entire paycheck handed over, endorsed.
You may recall that years ago some dealers came up with a clever ploy to not only get every penny out of the customer’s pocket or purse but even the lint, by charging a what is known as a documentation or documentary fee or, simply, a DOC fee.
The fees varied widely, from $15 to $200. Some dealers would charge whatever the market would bear and whatever gullible consumers would pay without complaint. The original intent was to fool the customer. Say you went to a dealer and he quoted you a price of $10,000 for a car. You thought $10,000 was high, so you visited another dealer, who agreed that $10,000 was too high, so he agreed to sell it to you for $9,900. You shook hands and sealed the deal. As you were signing the contract you looked at the numbers and saw-“$9,900” just as he promised, but after you dotted the last “i” you suddenly spotted “Plus $200 DOC fee.” So rather than paying $9,900 you ended up paying $10,100, or $100 more than the first dealer quoted you.
But, alas, all good things must come to an end, and after articles about the DOC-fee ruse appeared almost weekly, the Illinois attorney general’s office stepped in and the practice was almost halted.
We say “almost,” because the attorney general’s office sat down with the dealers to iron out a solution and eventually agreed to allow dealers to charge “no more” than a $40 DOC fee on each transaction, with the $40 supposedly to cover paperwork. If all dealership clerks got $40 every time they processed the paperwork on a car sale, they’d sublet the actual work so they could spend their time sunning on some remote island.
At least when the attorney general’s office agreed to the $40 fee, the agency stipulated that dealers post notices in their stores to inform customers that the DOC fee is negotiable and that they can try to negotiate the $40 down, if not out of the transaction.
Unfortunately, the attorney general’s office agreed to one other proviso. The DOC fee will rise each year, based on the increase in the cost of living. Some folks work under a contract that says that if inflation goes up X percent, their salary goes up X percent to compensate. It’s called a cost-of-living adjustment, and the dealers managed to get a COLA agreement written into the pact with the attorney general.
So two years ago the $40 DOC fee rose 3 percent, or $1.20, to $41.20, after a COLA. Last year there was a 2.7 percent, or $1.11, COLA, raising the fee to $42.31.
Keep a few things in mind. Not all dealers charge a DOC fee. Many simply quote you a price for the new car that includes sufficient profit to cover overhead-such as lights, rent and paperwork. That’s how free enterprise works.
Remember, too, that the fee is negotiable. If you’re told the state demands that the fee be charged (it doesn’t) or that it is dealership policy to charge $42.31 on each transaction (true, but that’s dealer policy, not state mandate), or that “every dealer does it,” (no, they don’t), ask to see the poster that legally has to be displayed in the showroom explaining the fee and the rules governing it. Then point to the poster and ask the salesperson, “What’s up, DOC?”
