2001/07/21
Wish in One Hand....
...and Spit in the Other, And See Which One Gets Full the Fastest...
In our quest to reach Vermont, we have made Plan A, Plan B, Plan C....let's see...have we run out of alphabet? Perhaps we're back at plan A now, having wound around after reaching the end. At 
the root of it all, is the lack of money. Story of my life. We were going to rent a U-haul truck and pull my van on an auto transport. But then LS announced that she had this bad feeling about my van--that it was about to fall apart. Some major mechanical issue was about to tax our finances even further. And since i don't have a warranty because i paid cash, as is, 2 years ago, there was little security if that happened. She suggested i try, even with my current credit blemishes, to buy a new car with a warranty. Often, the car dealerships will make special arrangements. I was skeptical, but what the hell.
We tried everything, and went to a plethora of dealerships. All of them turned me down. Even one that promised "Second Chance Finance." All because i got behind on credit cards. That was because i had to stop paying them in order to afford to move us here from Colorado when we became trapped at that apartment with bad phone lines and no employment for her to be had. Long story. I wouldn't even have gotten the damn cards, but a real estate agent there had told me he was about to put me in a house using my VA Certificate of Eligibility, and said i had to get those cards to build "new credit" after my bankruptcy 4 years ago. Well, that all fell through, horribly, along with other things we had planned. Long story, as i said. Regardless, these delinquencies killed my chances.
During this process of driving all over the coast, my A/C began to blow warmer...at first i thought it was just the heat-it was 110 to 115 degrees heat index. But it became apparent that the A/C was about to go, too. And then we heard this odd knocking in the engine, down low. Ominous.
So we spent a week driving around in that heat without air, nearing heat stroke, and to no avail. It made us even more determined to get to Vermont.
So the next plan is for me to simply list my van in the paper and sell it to an individual-perhaps a mechanic who needs something to work on. That money will help out quite a bit with our trip, but i will be without a vehicle again. I was so proud of myself when i bought that van. I paid cash from my settlement, so i wouldn't have a payment. I wanted to keep my overhead low so I'd have more money left over each month. But it was ill-advised. The blind leading the blind. LS is right: better to have that payment and know you have a warranty, because a dependable vehicle is a great part of security. Even moreso than owning a house. Somehow, that reasoning escaped me when my money came through. Probably because i had never owned a new vehicle with a warranty. Again, she was a Light Switcher.
