Holy crap…
Well, so I didn’t go to St. Louis because of car troubles…
Today, after much thought, I went to the car dealer, and looked at Ford Fusions. I’ve been researching them for about a month, and had decided that they were what I would go with when I finally decided to buy a car. Well they had an 06 on the lot with only 30K miles on it, clean, and in good shape, still under factory warranty. After some haggling about its price, and the value of my Tarus as a trade-in… including me threating to walk out… I went ahead and bought it.
I now own a very nice looking Grey 2006 Ford Fusion.
John's Musings 
My van is going to be lonely. It had a crush on your car. They were ALWAYS together in the parking lot.
Aww, poor lonely van.
How fortunate that your old car didn’t decide to cough a month sooner when you were less car-informed, although I’m sure you would’ve handled the situation nicely in that case, as well.
What kind of grey? Maybe your new car wants its picture taken. Ooh, are you going to name it?
We missed you, John. Sorry for all the car troubles, but glad you surfed your way to a good solution! See you soon!