Want me to tell you how I bought a car? It's pretty funny.

About internet jammers, a broken speedometer, and trash on the road.

Background: I've had my license for three months. I wanted to buy a new car for 1.5 million rubles, but I realized I'd be terrified to drive it, so I decided to look for something older and ended up choosing the one I'd wanted for almost the last five years. I found it at a used car dealership on Auto.ru, came in, and started the paperwork process. As my experience buying a house shows—I'm not good at taking a long time to choose. If I like it, I take it.

Since it was Sunday, many people were buying and fixing cars, so the cafe ran out of food. By the fifth hour of the deal (not figuratively, literally—I spent 6 hours at the dealership), they took pity on me and sold me some pelmeni under the table.

When everything was finally ready, they took another 20 minutes to slowly screw on the license plates and, like the sloth from Zootopia, put the papers in a folder.

Then they congratulated me, put me in the car, and waved goodbye.

About a kilometer later, I realized my navigation wasn't working. The taxi driver who brought me also had no signal, so I pulled myself together, stopped near a car wash, and asked a random person to explain how to get onto the MKAD. He waved his hands intelligently for a long time, and I nodded. Got in the car and drove.

I found the entrance to the MKAD quickly. But as soon as I turned onto it and started to pick up speed, I realized my speedometer wasn't working.

Hazard lights on, called the dealership, slightly panicking. Navigation still not working.

The manager: "Oh my god, well, the speedometer isn't working, you're taking it to the service anyway, just drive slowly with the flow!"

Time was approaching sunset, I don't know how to drive in the dark, and I needed to get home before it got dark.

I pressed the gas and started driving with the flow, roughly by feel. I never drive over 70 km/h, so I just drove at a comfortable speed, accelerating with the traffic.

The forest around me thickened. From the signs, I realized I was driving AWAY from Moscow.

The map, as it turned out, still wasn't working and was showing the wrong route.

While driving, I tried to open another app, but it didn't work either. I saw some abandoned bathhouse with a hotel, turned toward it, tried to figure out where I was, but the map wouldn't load.

I gave up on the map and decided to drive forward until the internet jamming zone ended or I found a U-turn. After all, I had half a tank of gas, and the car was driving pretty confidently, even though I was warned that the transmission needed diagnostics.

But it drove. And I drove. No one even honked at me.

The plan worked—about five kilometers later, the map turned on and showed me the route. Only 40 minutes to home, just needed to make a couple of U-turns in a scenic (and empty, thank God) spot, get on the right direction of the MKAD, and then calmly get onto Yaroslavskoye Shosse, where it's just straight ahead, and then I'd remember.

I drove. The setting sun started blinding me, I couldn't see anything, and I think I ran a red light. The road markings disappeared. I just imagined two lanes of cars to my left, oriented myself by the car behind me because there were no cars ahead and they started driving crookedly.

And then a piece of some huge plastic film flew onto my windshield, covering half my view, but slid down lower.

I decided... to do nothing. That piece of film would fall off eventually (no, it didn't—it got wrapped around the license plate frame and stuck).

I drove. Sometimes I sang to calm down. From stress, I sometimes lost focus, but the car drove straight and confidently, so I slid down in the seat and drove straight.

I made it home, parked like a queen, furiously tore the film off the bumper (which had made everyone look at me like I was an idiot), and went to pick up my Ozon goodies.

Alive and now with a car. A red one. And the one I'd wanted for a very, very long time.

I think I'm not afraid of anything anymore.