I buy a car.

I bought a new car recently. I am not very good at buying cars. My dad told me to do that thing where you push down on the bonnet and make the car bounce, but I thought he was joking. I am not very good at haggling either. Why would you advertise something for sale at a price you're not going to sell it for? You don't see ONO on a Mars Bar wrapper. "I'll give you 36p!" Could I knock £1.20 off something in Waterstone's because it has clearly been pre-leafed? No, I can't. Because that would be madness.

I would just buy the first car I come across - my mum was giving me lifts to a number of reputable local used car dealerships and was planning to leave me to it, but was forced to emerge from the car in order to talk me out of buying a tobacco-stained Fiat Tipo with holes in the seats. I'm definitely not likely to negotiate on price. "I say, is this model not meant to have, er, wheels?" All of this is odd, because there are many situations in which I would happily go toe-to-toe with people.

This was actually the first time in three cars that I'd actually gone out searching - my first car was kindly presented to me at a knock-down sum, the second I bought by accident on ebay and this third one was becoming necessary for commuting to some work. There's a certain terror in being asked to hand over vast wodges of cash in exchange for an unknown quantity. Of course, these are only vast amounts to me - I do yearn for the days when my car buying budget extends beyond comparison with a long-weekend self-catering in Blackpool.

Bizarrely, with the car I eventually did buy, the dealer actually went and told me all of the things he was prepared to throw in. I'd like to imagine that he saw in me a kind of flinty resolve, but I really think he felt a bit sorry for me. He said he would valet the car, but this was shortly after I slathered alcohol gel on my hands having first sat in it. In fairness, it was bad.

I opened the bonnet and stared blankly at the gizmos and oily bits, just knowing that this was what you were supposed to do. Engine? Check. I think. "Is this your first car, then?" the man asked me. Er, no. I decided to keep the fact that I was a freelance motoring journalist to myself in order to save myself some dignity. I'd like to think there's a certain pattern emerging in my car ownership - safe, outlandish...safe. Two days later I arrive home with an ageing green Ford Fiesta. He even threw in the wheels.