It was the weekend after Thanksgiving when, on a whim, we started calling around. "Do you have one?" we asked, and after far too many phone calls, we finally found someone who did. Out of all the possibilities in the surrounding three counties only one could be found.

"Can we see it?" we asked, and they said sure, come right down, but you can only look because it's already been promised to someone else. So we zipped right over as quickly as we could through post-Thanksgiving traffic and we looked. And we oohed and we aahed and we wished we could do more than look but that would have to wait until later, and then we went inside and they handed up papers and we signed our names and they told us "We'll call you."

Then we went home to wait.

And wait.

And wait.

I began to wonder if they had forgotten about us. I began to wonder if our names somehow slipped off the list. I called around to other places. I started hearing stories about other people who were given their opportunities within weeks. I was starting to think maybe it was never going to happen.

This afternoon, during lunch, there was a call.

"I have one for you," he said. "I know it arrived. I just need to find it, somewhere out there. I'll call you back."

And he made me wait some more, but this time it wasn't months, only about half an hour.

"When can you come?" he said, and I fired off emails to Richard, and then gave up and called him. "Can you leave work?" I asked him, and my boss laughed at me and told me to go get it because it was obvious I wasn't going to get anything else productive done that day.

We met at home and I emptied out the old Maxima. We stopped along the way to have it cleaned from top to bottom. We made it to Fairfield and filled out paperwork – oh, so very much paperwork, and we sat for hours while they twiddled away at financing and extended warranties and we eyed the clock and wondered whether or not we might actually make it back to Davis in time for the play, and then finally, finally, everything was done and they handed me the key and we walked outside and it was ours.

It is the prettiest blue possible. It looks like a stretched out Volkswagen Bug. It sounds as if it is unwinding when it stops. It is so very lovely, inside and out. And I am so very, very happy that we finally have it, even if it did take us seven months.

Our Prius, at last. So worth the wait.