crap couple of days...

[snowee]

Me: Hello.
Life, The Universe, & Everything: Hey. What’s up?
Me: I don’t want to talk about it.
Life, U, & E: You sound bitter.
Me: Well, yeah. What’d I ever do to you?
Life, U, & E: {innocent eyed blink} What?
Me: It’s just that we just barely got ourselves out of debt.
Life, U, & E: Yeah. Good job on that, by the way.
Me: Fuck you. So we had a whole 2 months of behaving really well with money. Then the car breaks down and wipes out that pittance of savings. One month later it breaks down again.
Life, U, & E: That’s Life.
Me: Why now? I mean, the cost of repairing the damned thing is 30% more than the trade-in value. Add that to the previous and we’re looking at double. What am I supposed to do?
Life, U, & E: Public transport?
Me: Here? I’d have to pull the kid out of pre-school and karate because there is no transportation between here and those places. Hubby would have to get up an extra hour earlier to walk to the nearest bus stop and take three transfers to get to and from work every day.
Life, U, & E: Well, you could cut your losses and buy a new car.
Me: With what!? I have to borrow money to pay for repairs or borrow to buy a new car. You already wiped out savings.
Life, U, & E: That’s the way the cookie crumbles.
Me: I know, but can’t I be pissed for a while!?
Life, U, & E: Sure, but it won’t do you any good.
Me: I’ll feel better.
Life, U, & E: Until you get the bill.
Me: Fuck you. All I wanted was to be ahead enough to buy a decent car. It’s not like we drive luxury vehicles and live in an extravagant palace.
Life, U, & E: Maybe, but the place where you live is nice and your car isn’t some ancient clunker.
Me: Doesn’t matter what year it is if it doesn’t fucking run. If it doesn’t run then it’s worse than a clunker because it doesn’t get you from point “a” to point “b”. Where we live I’ll give you. It’s nice. I don’t have to worry about things like mice so it’s not exactly low income housing. Still, we’re renting. Our money isn’t exactly working for us here either.
Life, U, & E: Look, most people have to buy cars on loans. It’s just part of the rat race.
Me: Which I try not to get wrapped up in, but we need a vehicle. If I had been given the chance to save up a little money, then I wouldn’t worry so much. If we buy a car, then we’ll be back to paycheck to paycheck – back to scrimping on groceries when we need to pay a doctor bill. Oh hell. Whether we fix it or not we’ll be in debt anyway. Might as well go whole hog and get something reliable.
Life, U, & E: I’ve got a treat for you there.
Me: What? Car shopping with my husband? He refuses to sit in the driver’s seat to make sure it’s comfortable even though he drives it 90% of the time. He says if I’m comfortable then he’ll be comfortable even though he’s 7 inches taller and almost 100 lbs heavier.
Besides that, he has his eye on a PT Cruiser “’cause they look cool”. I think they’re ugly and they’re 4 cylinders. I want at least 6 cylinders. This is Utah. You can’t get up the hills in a 4 cylinder car. I always dreamed I’d have a Jeep and I’ve seen 4 for sale around town in the last month. Think they’re trying to tell me something?
Life, U, & E: You have a kid and the ones you’ve seen have looked a little shite. I know they look fun, but it would probably be better not to buy a car that looks like it’s been driven by a 17 year old. It’s not very practical.
Me: You know me so well. I may talk a big game, but in the end I’m always practical. {sigh} He wants sedans. What kind of guy has a family car as a dream car?
Life, U, & E: The kind of guy who wanted kids before you ever did.
Me: I’m not asking for a sports car, just a simple sub-compact. Practical enough since it’s just the one kid. Car dealers never listen to me, but I know more about cars than he does.
Life, U, & E: He took that mechanics class in high school.
Me: So he keeps telling me, and yet I have noticed I still know more than he does. Point is, we go car shopping and the dealer’s only talking to him, but he’s standing there like he doesn’t even know we’re at a car dealership. I am reluctant to take over because he’ll tell me later that he finds it emasculating. You’d think standing there like a dope would be emasculating. Can I go without him?
Life, U, & E: That would be so wrong.
Me: Yeah, but I’d get more done. Whatever happens, I’m not going to Larry H. Miller’s dealerships.
Life, U, & E: Good for you. Fuckhead thinks rape is a more acceptable family value than homosexuality judging from the way he ripped out Brokeback Mountain and played that other movie for 5 weeks.
Me: You noticed too?
Life, U, & E: Yeah, don’t buy from the Jazz players dealerships either.
Me: Not planning on it because you know who really owns those.
Both: Larry.
Me: Let’s not get political. {deep inhale & exhale} Blue book value. Black book value. Consumer reports. Walking around car lots. Test drives. Salesmen. This is bound to suck.