I accidentally answered the phone the other day and encountered the dreaded bill collector.

May I speak to Gerald?
There’s nobody here by that name.
May I speak to Debra?
This is she.
Oh, but you don’t know who Gerald is?
Yes I do but he’s not available at this number.
Do you know a number where he might be available?
Nope, we’ve been divorced for almost three years and I don’t have a number.

Blah blah blah, she exhausted every question possible about how to located him or if I knew where he was working or how much he made, etc. Then she started in on me and I gave her the barest minimum in responses.

(Here comes the good part.)

She: So after your necessary bills you have about $1000 left over a month so you could afford to make some sort of payment on this debt, right?
Me: Not really, I still have other bills and I do have to eat.
She: Well, what do you spend your money on? Cable TV and Internet? Eating out all the time? You could go with the basic plans and save money and stop going out and wasting money.
Me? Seriously? You’re suggesting I sit in the dark and eat Ramen so I can afford to make payments on a vehicle I no longer have? What kind of good-effort payments did you have in mind?
She: Even $25-50 a month would go a long way in clearing up your credit.
Me: DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW LONG IT WOULD TAKE TO PAY OFF $14,000 WITH $25 A MONTH PAYMENTS? I’d be dead of boredom and starvation long before the first grand was paid off. No thanks, my credit is so far down in the crapper that the world’s best plumber couldn’t dredge it up.
She: So I should just put you down as refusing to negotiate?

Duh.

My position on being a deadbeat: It’s the business or bank’s responsibility to NOT give me credit. If they’re careless enough to throw away their money, why is it my responsibility to give it back? And with interest? What a rip-off! I made enough car payments to pay off the actual price of that car. It’s not my fault they chose to apply my payments to their interest scam first, and then when the car exploded and got ran over and repossessed it wasn’t worth enough to get the rest of their money. Price of doing business, yo.

Now with people it’s different. I hand someone money and I never expect to get it back, then when I do it’s a bonus, right? If someone hands me money and it’s a loan, I pay them back as soon as possible. (Thanks Mom, did you get my check yet?) People are people and I don’t renege on people. Just businesses.

Anyway, I told her not to bother calling me when she got further down the list and found the loan on his truck that we defaulted on too. Let it go beyotch, we ain’t paying. Blood out of a turnip and all that.

I don’t want anything special from anyone, I just want stuff to be done the way it’s supposed to be done.

Our child support check is a week late so far. I don’t know if it’s because of the company he works for screwing up or if it’s the government agency that forwards it to my account. It’s bullshit either way. Court ordered automatic deduction electronically deposited into my account. How frakking hard can it be? Seems like every time there’s a holiday the ball gets dropped and we get screwed.

Shit.

I hadn’t heard anything from the body shop about the Freelander, so I called them yesterday. More bullshit.

I’d left the car where it died and notified Wells Fargo they should come and get it.
They never did.
Some old fart crashed into it.
Wells Fargo tells me I have to get it fixed, THEN they’ll repossess.
Old Farts’s insurance (USAA) has it towed to Auto Body World – where Buck works.
I sign release papers at Auto Body World, am told completely covered with no deductible.
Time passes.
I finally called ABW Friday and the MANAGER gets on the phone (with an attitude)
I’m told they haven’t done shit because I’m not the registered owner.
Buck is the registered owner (because his name – as the husband – comes up as the registered owner) and he refuses to sign anything.
Wells Fargo called ABW a while ago to verify the location of the car but hasn’t called back or returned call.
WTF? Now what?

I will say once I had the conversation with Manager, he chilled on the attitude quite a bit. He’d misunderstood a few factoids. Other guy’s company is paying for repairs, not mine. And only for the damage done in THAT accident, not the creasing down the side. ABW knew about previous damage because Ginnie had taken the car in to show her father and Manager thought I was trying to claim all the damage against USAA – which I specifically discussed with the lady I signed the car in. I’m an honest person! I wonder where he got the impression I was condoning insurance fraud.

He says WF will have to negotiate with USAA for direct payment because Manager judges car beyond repair. I suppose I have to chat with WF now – dread dread dread – and those conversations never go well.

Why can’t people just do what they’re supposed to do? I’m being honest and doing what I can and yet everyone seems to think I’m some sort of crook.

I did go out last night with my friends. We started out at Papago Brewing Co. The party was supposed to be around six people and somehow 3 times that showed up. We had a great time!

Evo posted this on Brightkite: Debbie is looking for single middle aged men who know how to have a good time. Buy her a Strongbow. Easy-peasy.

And some guy actually did! Of course, he handed me the drink and promptly walked away, but I got a free Strongbow out of it anyway. After that CJ, Dan, Jack and I ended up at another place for Karaoke. I really need to find one song I can do so I can join in. I sing really well when I’m singing along, but without that other voice I’m not sure I can stay on key. It’s been a long time since I sang solo. On the way out we saw this:

Santa has pink balls!

My conversations lately with LJ have been eerily similar to my conversations with my father:

M: Hey Dad, what’s up
D: Everything’s fine here, everything okay there?
M: All about the same, everything’s cool.
D: Okay, love ya then, bye!

Seriously, that’s just about how short. He’s not one to waste much time on the phone. I think the longest phone conversation I ever had with him took almost 20 minutes.

Max has called a few times from over there. He tried calling several times the first morning of PodcampAZ and I missed him and carried my (on vibrate) phone in my hand the rest of the weekend hoping he’d try again. The last two attempts were less than satisfactory. Static, cutting in and out and somewhat garbled, not to mention quite late at night. That boy never did understand time zone differences. I gather he’s in finally in Tikrit. They had a two-week stopover in Kuwait for whatever reason, then were supposed to move on to their base over last weekend. He’s got an “over there” cell phone so I now I need to find an international calling card.

Went to a friend’s house for a “we went to London and you didn’t so you have to see our pictures” party Saturday evening. I was really impressed by her Husband’s intensity in presenting the Harry Potter series of vacation shots. He’d apparently spent hours before the trip investigating actual shooting locations and plotting the course and then clipping screen shots from the movies for comparison afterward. Complete with theme music. Very nicely done. I suggested YouTube.

After that, I met another friend and her MIL at a local (crappy) bar and had a great time watching her do Karaoke. Not enough chutzpah to get up and do it myself yet. I may have to practice a couple of songs for next time, just in case I get up the nerve.

Oh oH OHHH, guess where they took the Freelander to get fixed? Seriously! I had to go down there Monday morning to sign off on it. The other guy’s insurance man asked me where I wanted it to go – completely covered – and I suggested the auto body place where Buck works. Yeah, part of me is giggling, but for reals this way I know he’ll make sure it’s all fixed before we get it back. He’s vested in this stupid car loan too and we need it as good as it can get to sell it for as much as possible.

Still ignoring all calls from Wells Fargo. The flunkies on the phone never seem to scroll down to the notes and I got sick and tired of repeating the same lines over and over. As soon as the car is back I’ll call the one specific number I need to. Until then, there’s no law that says I have to answer the phone.

Let’s see . . .

Have spent time with Kira, but I can’t readily find the cable I need to transfer pics from my camera. Silly me didn’t seat the memory card properly last time and all the pics takes since then went to the internal memory instead. Duh.

Ginnie’s mice keep dieing. She’s been getting them from PetCo the last few times because they’re cheaper but pretty soon their hair falls out in chunks and they eventually just lay down and die. She’s supposed to be raising mice for term project in school. Even the snake won’t eat them. It was hilarious watching the snake roam around the bathtub with the damned mouse riding on his back. I should have taken video. Snake was sooo not interested. Unfortunately, now she has to dump or clean everything and start over before winter break. And yes, the kitten is gone. It’s living at boyfriend’s house.

Can’t think of anything else at the mo.

I named this journal that cuz that’s how life is. Just keep moving. If you stop moving you die, and where does that leave you? Dead, duh. How does that help you when things get better?

(This is a really long post so feel free to skip it.)

I’m so fucking stupid. Somehow I’m back in a car worth a third of what I owe. Another one.

Things were going swimmingly (forgive the pun) down at JDByrider Friday afternoon. We’d worked out all the pre-financing shit and I’d handed over the down payment I’d agreed to. They offered me a choice of three used cars. The first being a two-door I-don’t-remember-what that I test drove (with Ginnie) and we decided uh, no. We need 4 doors what with her friends and Kira’s car seat. Try again.

The second choice was a 2001 Grand Marquis. Big car, but in excellent condition. Another test drive and it’s got get-up-and-go, power everything and a great sound system (cassette though, eeeek) and drove like a dream. Floats.

The third choice was somewhere in the back and wouldn’t be ready for a couple more days.

Ginnie and I both liked the car and were resigned to that’s the best we could do at the moment. And I really needed to get this done.

So. She (the salesperson) handed me a paper with the amount on it, focusing on the payments which I would have no trouble with. But the price on the car seemed a bit steep. My problem is I don’t dicker. I can’t dicker worth beans. Price on the car? $10,699. Now that I’ve had time to look it up? Going rate is six, six and a half. Already fucked up.

Now the pressure started. Seemed like half the staff in that building were distracting me and speeding up the process and then it was a downhill slide. Somehow I’m in for two more down payments (deferred my ass, more than we agreed to) and a total financing of more than I owed on the last car. Fuck!

Completely my fault. I should have dragged my feet, I should not been in such a hurry, I should have walked away. I am so fucking stupid.

I knew all that going in. I even had blue book linked on my phone. Did I stop and use it? Fuck no. Idiot. Always dicker. Always be prepared to walk away. I KNEW THAT. But when it comes down to it, I’m an easy sell. I’m that proverbial sucker born every minute.

With what appears to be a really nice used car. Sure, with 8 cylinders It’ll eat gas. And with push buttons for everything (even the foot pedals have a pushbutton adjustment) that are bound to stop working one after another.

And other than that test drive I haven’t been in it. I needed to keep the rental so Ginnie would have work transportation while I was at Podcamp all weekend so she had the new car. She loves it! While I tend to think it’s an old people car she says, “It’s a ‘homey’ car, Mom! We need hydraulics!”

Geesh. That tight feeling I’ve had in my stomach just got worse.

I got a letter in the mail Friday from City of Mesa about the towed car and how it’ll be considered abandoned (with fines) if it’s not picked up soon. And Wells Fargo say I have to get it fixed before they’ll repossess it if I want the best value against that loan. I requested a police report but that is supposed to take a week to 10 days. I’m going to try to see if the tow-yard gives out ANY information about the old fart who hit it (his car went to the same place) and his insurance information. I have nothing on the guy. Wells Fargo had the car insured, but they told me I have to hit up his insurance company first. Jesus Fucking Christ. And in the meantime Wells Fargo peons are calling me every few hours to discuss my late payments. Fuck you people. I’ll get to you when I figure out what to do.

I know, I know, grownups aren’t supposed to be deadbeats. I know I shouldn’t take on more debt. But at what point are the financiers responsible? I have to laugh at the idiots who give me credit. It’s obvious I can’t pay what I already owe and yet you want to give me more? Let’s dance. I need a car.

You won’t. Want a hint? The fucking car again.

Okay, I’ll tell you. The fucking car has been sitting on the side of the road a couple of houses down from our apartment complex. I see it a few times a day. It died on the 13th, right? The next day Ginnie and I clean everything out and remove the tag (in AZ the tag is yours). And on the 17th the cops put a 48 hour tow sticker on the window. I’ve been telling the idiots at Wells Fargo almost every day to come get it. Voluntary surrender. Still there.

Tonight some 85-year-old dumbass PLOWED into the back of it. Well-lit street, nothing around it, parked politely on the side of the street, and some fucktard SLAMS into it. The belligerent old man was in the back of the ambulance swearing this car came out of nowhere!

I hear the sirens and wander out to see what’s what and oh shit, that’s my car. I battle between responsible adult and covering my ass and responsible adult wins. I walk down there and chat with the cops, tell them the history and the calls to the bank and I’m pretty sure I’m off the hook. They just finished towing them both away.

Gaaaaaaaaaaaaawd will this month never end!

If there really was a Hell, I’d be standing on the edge.

My car died. And I keep getting the same lame-ass phone monkeys when I contact Wells Fargo about what to do now. Could I please speak to someone who can actually READ the notes?

My phone died. Again. This time it just won’t charge or turn on. Eventually I get another replacement, but there was a week there when all text messages and voice mails evaporated.

My rent check got lost – which actually turned out OK, but I had a really angsty week worrying about late fees and stuff. With proof the bank screwed up I’m cool with no late fees. I lurve my landlord.

My son left for his second deployment to Iraq.

My support check is late. So I can’t even get another rental car until that shows up. And the car Ginnie borrowed for 5 minutes to pick me up from the rental place ran out of gas.

Daughter just happened to step outside tonight just as the ex was cruising past our place. I wonder how many times he’s done that! And Ginnie’s met the new girlfriend who was with him. Nice date, cruising past his ex’s apartment.

The program I bought to create the Program Directory for PodcampAZ has been giving me fits. It says I can use any Windows acceptable font, and is supposed to save to pdf but every time I try it I ended up with white text on white background. Finally, after hours of searching help pages for both this stupid program and Adobe, I managed to get it to work. But not on an Adobe reader – there are í±� with X in it at the end of every line. Yet if I open the same pdf with another reader those marks aren’t there. I win?

I have the Evo @ 11 recording Wednesday night, possibly Gangplank‘s podcast too. I have a Podcamp workup on Saturday and I have Jury Duty next Monday.

I cannot WAIT for this month to be over.

It’s officially dead. Died a few minutes ago of an exploded differential. Seriously. Chunks on the street outside our complex and a trail of smelly fluid.

Fuck it.

I guess I’ll call Wells Fargo tomorrow and tell them I voluntarily quit and they can repossess. Bring a flatbed to pick it up as it won’t even roll closer to the curb. At least it’s not blocking anything, just parked like a drunk did it. They can do what they want to me. Blood from a stone and all that shit. Or is it turnip?

Fortunately I rented a car today so at least I’m transportationally covered for at least a week.

Anybody got a car to sell?

So Friday morning Casey and I went to this used tire place to get . . . reassurance? He knows a guy who knows a guy and they cut us a break. I’d budgeted $120 for a new tire (for a car I hope to unload pretty damned soon) and ended up paying $25 on a fairly new tire. Except it wasn’t the one “damaged” in my hit-n-run, it was the one on the other side that was so bald there was no tread left. The “damaged” tire we found out was fine once he got it up on a jack. And guess what! My car doesn’t shimmy and grind anymore. For the moment anyway. Now Ginnie can stop angsting about the car.

And here I was thinking I was about $100 bucks up right? No such luck. Ginnie came home from school with a couple of envelopes: one for a class ring and one for her announcements/cap & gown. Order due TODAY. We’re passing on the overpriced announcements and went with a Senior 2009 sweatshirt and her cap & gown and tassel. There goes my extra $. And we’ll check out Walmart for a class ring next check. She’s happy. Good thing my kid is thrifty. Seriously, I told her we’d manage to get everything she really wanted and it all worked out. They had a “hers” package and a “his” package and the “his” package came with a free large Senior mug. Now, tell me. What exactly is a Senior male expected to put IN his large mug? Coffee? Riiiiiight.

At some point we need to sit down and make a list of who she’d send announcements to anyway. Would we even need 50? And get her portraits done. I reminded her about moo cards and how much nicer they are than those plain old name cards. Seriously, what do people DO what all that crap when they receive a graduation announcement? Maybe if it’s someone you care about you might throw it in a desk drawer never to be seen again. Waste waste waste. We’ll do some announcements and the slightly more useful moo cards but I’m not doing the tissue inserts and stupid name cards and deluxe inner envelopes and envelope seals, etc. What a rip-off.

Saturday, I printed out a draft copy of the PodcampAZ program I’ve been working on and went to the work up. After that I went to a friend’s birthday party and observed people playing Rock Band, until the kids took over. It annoyed me to no end that these 8-11 year old kids were basically beating the shit out of the equipment and nobody reigned them in. I’ve heard those drums and guitars break easily so I hope nothing was broken. What happened to parenting? I do believe indulgence is killing us all. From bratty kids to Wall Street players. And speaking of parenting . . .

Buck wasn’t answering his phone Sunday, so Casey called me with the all-clear to go to Kira’s birthday party. His loss. That Girl was there with her new boyfriend and twin babies and you could tell she was getting pissed when nobody would talk to her. Were I her, I be happy they didn’t talk to me . . . and tell me exactly what they thought of me. I was proud of Casey’s friends that they were civil and didn’t kick the bitch’s ass. And those are some unfortunate looking babies, let me tell you. Fat with big heads. Poor kids. Kira made out like a bandit and had a great time though she was so over-stimulated and tired that she could barely focus. Screamed bloody murder in fear of the piñata.

And that was my weekend. I’ve turned into a cranky old lady.

I’m seriously thinking about defaulting on this car. I don’t know what else to do. Casey called me today to yell at me to get a new tire. Apparently his father checked it out and there’s a big chunk missing where it was jammed into a strut underneath. Could blow any minute. Fuck.

I got my check today and after paying all my regular bills (except the fucking car payment) I’m left with less than $200. New tire means no birthday present for Kira. New tire means being stuck at home more than I am now. New tire my ass. Car payment will likely be used as a down payment on something else.

Speaking of their father, Ginnie keeps dropping comments that I don’t really want to hear. Only to hope that as long as he’s happier maybe he’ll hate me less and someday we can be in the same room – for the kid’s sakes. She says she wants to ask him for either help getting a car or a new laptop for Christmas. And that he should be able to help her seeing as how his new live-in girlfriend makes big bucks and where could his money possibly be going, etc. I DON’T FRICKING CARE! I don’t ask. It’s none of my business and I don’t want the kids reporting back to him either.

Other than the car, I’ve been having a pretty lucky day. Slept good, great bagel for breakfast, decent sales at the grocery stores, good parking . . . knocking on my wood desk now.

Going to Gangplank tonight to record the Gangplank Podcast and Evo @ 11. I’ve been working on a new intro so we’ll see if Evo likes it. If so, it’ll be on this week’s show. And I’m going hunting for a better word processing/desktop publishing program than MSWorks. Works sucks ass. I’m managing, but I’ve volunteered to do the program for PodcampAZ and I’d like a little more flexibility.

S’all. Mebbe mo laterz.

Had Casey and The Screech here most of the weekend, until I had a hissy fit early this afternoon and he took his kid and slagged off somewhere. I’m just so tired of being trod upon. You know how they say the best thing about being a grandparent is you get to hand them back when you’re done? Yeah, I can’t seem to hand her back. Even when he’s HERE he expects me to supervise her the entire time. He stays around long enough to put her in bed (though doesn’t wait ’til she’s actually asleep) then goes out with his buddies until 3-4 in the morning. Then gets irritated with her when she gets up at the normal time in the morning and wants his attention. You’re her father for christ’s sake, play with the kid. She’s sick of Grammi already. And he knows that and gets all apologetic after. She’s two tomorrow and isn’t old enough to get that Daddy A) isn’t a morning person even on his best day and B) still wants to be young and stay out all night. So I alternate snark with blunt-ass comments about what he needs to do.

Her Birthday party is next weekend. Mr. Nice Guy lent quite a bit of cash to an old friend weeks ago and hasn’t seen a return on that since. His next week’s check is clear so he can throw her party then. And Buck is planning on going so I won’t. Let him have the day.

I’m forcing myself to read The Catcher in the Rye because apparently you’re supposed to have read this in school. I didn’t. Please tell me there’s a payoff in the end? This is on my top 10 most boringly pointless books of all time. If this whiny, hateful crap is all there is, how on earth did this crap get published in the first place? I don’t get it. Unless there’s something interesting in the end. I’m about halfway and I’ll really be pissed if nothing happens.

Max called with the latest deployment information. He’s being sent to Camp Speicher in Tikrit, leaving October 17th, spending a week in Kuwait again and then onto the base. Another month maybe until he gets a phone that works there. We’ve been through this before.

Other than this night, I tried really hard not to think about where he was and the increased danger. He didn’t tell me about getting hit by shrapnel and all that until he came home on leave. I don’t dwell on it. There’s nothing I can actively DO so there’s no point in worrying, right?

Except for some reason this time when I DO think about it I’m covered in this HUGE dread cloud. I don’t know why. I totally believe in the power of positive thinking which is probably why I don’t think about Iraq. This time is harder. I didn’t say anything to him, but this time is 10 times worse.

Think POSITIVE thoughts Debbie.

I’ve been wracking my brain about this fucking car. I’m so screwed. It Blue Books at around $4k and I owe over $16k. My credit is already shit, so I’m seriously thinking about defaulting and dumping the damned thing. Someone suggested bankruptcy. Never EVER get a Land Rover. This fucking car has caused me nothing but hassle and angst since I drove it off the lot. It’s been doing that shimmying grinding thing it was doing last year. Yes the parts were warrantied, but I can guarantee you that dealership will fuck me over as much as they can if I take it back. Plus the cheap Tire Pros tires I bought are already getting thin. I’m not picky anymore. I just want a dependable car with A/C (and maybe a decent stereo) that can move Ginnie and I and everyone else who depends on us for transportation. I have to have A/C. I spend way too much time sitting in this car waiting for other people and half that time with a baby in the back.

Can’t think of anything else. Catch y’all later.