When I got home, my wife, Tina, was making tacos.

She took one look at my face and said, “What happened?”

I told her.

She laughed so hard she had to put the spoon down.

“The used lot on Van Buren?” she said. “Oh, Joe. You should have told them who you were.” “Why? Because then they'd have been nice to me?”

She stopped laughing.

“That's the thing, isn't it,” I said. “If I'd walked in wearing a suit, Brent would've handed me a coffee and a cookie. Same guy. Same money. Same van. The only difference was the shirt.”

I sat down at the kitchen table.

“Half our drivers wear that shirt, Tina. Nine hundred people. If Brent talks to me like that, how does he talk to them when they come in to buy their kid's first car?”

Our daughter, Molly, who was ten, looked up from her homework.

“Dad, are you going to buy the vans from the mean man?”

I thought about it.

“I don't know yet, sweetheart,” I said.

Then I picked up my phone and called Rita.