Lost In Splendor

I’m all wow, people really don’t seem to be missing me. Then I read emails and messages that are all “Dude! Your comments are closed! WTF?”. Then I also realized my email address I used to use for this site is no longer set up. Sorry about that guys!

I’m going to try to organize this so that it’s not just one big long explosion entry.

So today I’m going to talk to you guys about my car.

It occurs to me that I haven’t posted anything since BEFORE this issue came up. You guys (unless we’re friends on Facebook) don’t even know there was ever an issue. Boy do we need to talk!

Let’s start at the beginning.

In June KC and I realized our car needed new tires. At this point we didn’t have much money, but we did what we could and bought a tire a week for four weeks until we finally had a new set. Hooray for tires! We were very happy to have that out of the way.

In July our car was having a few more issues. We were having multiple problems with the headlight going out resulting in getting pulled over by various officers of the law and a few written warnings. Despite getting it fixed the light continued to go out.

While taking it in we also got various things done (I honestly don’t remember what) what I do remember is it cost $280. The VERY NEXT DAY the car wouldn’t turn on. We got a jump start and it seemed alright. We turned it off again at home tried to turn it on again and…it wouldn’t start. We got it towed to the auto shop and it was determined that we would need a new alternator. That was an extra $350.

Alright. We were upset about it. It was hard to pay for, but we did it and we actually felt really good about it. This was an investment into a car we really needed. It was one less thing we would have to worry about later.

In August the car went out of alignment. We had just taken a trip to Philly for my B-day and we were working on moving so we ignored it for a week. We would have to wait till we got paid to worry about it. It continued to get worse and I noticed that the tires screeched when we went around bends or turns.

By the time we were able to get to KOST our steering wheel needed to be held completely sideways in order for the car to drive straight.

We waited a while at KOST and about a hour later a man came over wanting to know who owned the car. I said it was both of ours. He said we should follow him and he took us out into the bay where they were working on the vehicles.

He took us to it and it was still up in the air. He began to tell us that the A Frame was completely rusted through. He said there was no way to align the car with it in that condition and the rusted frame was what had caused the misalignment. He told us he could look into a way to fix it, but it would cost us at least $1,200.

I was devastated.

I told him not to bother looking into it. There was no way I was going to put that much money into that car even if we did have that much, which clearly we didn’t. He also showed us that our tires had been riding sideways and our brand new tires were already worn to the threads.

Then the guy told us that he couldn’t believe we had been driving the car in that condition, how unbelievably unsafe it was and he recommended that we have it towed home. Now, I really didn’t want to pay to tow it and we only lived about 8 miles away. We had been driving on it for this long…we decided to drive it home.

He then made us sign a paper saying that he recommended we never drive it again and that they aren’t liable. Lovely. Just the sort of thing you want to sign.

We did make it home. Once we were there we thought perhaps we should just take it down the block to get some dinner and then that would be it. We would never drive it again. We pulled out, drove a few feet and then there was a loud “POP” and lots of shacking.

We had popped out tire. The car was done. We backed it up into the driveway and left it there. This happened on August 28.

Moving is not enjoyable when you don’t have a car. Luckily we were able to borrow my father’s car for a few weeks, but after that we were on our own.

(I’ll say more about moving in a different post.)

So since September 20th KC and I have not had a car. I’ve been working two jobs around 65 hours a week, taking buses and taxis. It has not been fun. I don’t even want to think about the amount of money I have wasted on cabs.

Back to the car. So I decided we should post the car on Craig’s List. I thought $500 would be fair.

Someone contacted us and it turned out the A Frame had ben recalled by Hyundai and we would be able to get that part fixed for free.

Great! So the car was towed to Hyundai at there expense to be fixed for free. Woo!

That was on September 30. A week went by and I called my dad to see how things were going. He told me they had found a few more things wrong with the car. It would cost a little over $900. He said he and my mom had talked it over and told them to go ahead with it and I could pay them back. The car would be done in a few weeks.

What? $900! A few more weeks? I could have passed out.

I just couldn’t imagine putting that much extra money into this car after already spending all that money during the summer. I am the third owner of this car. I bought it in 2004 for $3,000. I was so upset over that. I really don’t like owning people money either.

However, KC calmed me down and we decided it was still cheaper than buying a new car and if this worked it would still be a good thing.

Time kept passing by. I kept taking taxi’s, buses, and depending on thoughtful coworkers giving me rides.

I do have to say I’m extremely grateful that KC and I moved while this first happened. We probably would have lost our jobs.

This past Monday I decided to call the dealership. They said the car was getting fixed that day! It would either be finished later that day or on Tuesday. Fantastic! I called Tuesday and left a message. No one called me back.

I called them around 2:00pm. They said the car would be done by 5:00pm. Super, but I had to go into job #2 by this point so I wouldn’t be able to get it until the next day. Boo.

Still 5 came and went with no word. I called at 6:30 and they said they were waiting for the part. It would come in on Thursday and be done Thursday night. What? I was annoyed, but fine.

Thursday came. I called to check. They were working on it at that moment, but it wouldn’t be done will the next morning.

On Friday I called at 11:30. They said it wouldn’t be done will 2:30 at the latest. At 2:30 I called and they said it would be done at 3:15. Grrr.

At 4:30 I finally got a call saying the car was done, but they couldn’t get a hold of my father for payment. I gave them my mom’s number. Still nothing. I tried calling both numbers. Both calls failed. I called one brother, no answer. I called my other brother and when I got a hold of him I asked if he knew where my parents were. “Yeah, They’re on a cruise”. What???

I was on emotional overload at that point and so upset knowing I would have to take ANOTHER cab in the morning. I must have cried for the next two hours.

Finally I was able to calm down and see the positive. The car is done. My parent’s got home today and my dad said he would call and pay on Monday so HOPEFULLY on Monday after my 6am – 11 am shift I will be able to pick up my car and DRIVE IT HOME.

I’ll keep you informed.

Next Entry….The Drug Store.

I really took the comments on my entry about things to do before my birthday to heart. The consensus was to just relax and let go of these self imposed deadlines. So yeah KC and I did not stay up all night at the casino.

I’m feeling a lot more relaxed about getting this one year older. I’m not at all where I intended to be at this age. (Of course 14 year old me thought I would have at least 3 kids by now amongst other things. What was I thinking??) That’s okay. I think this happens to everyone at one point or another. It’s so easy to wrapped up In our expectations for how our life is supposed to be. It’s hard to train oneself to let go of all those supposed tos and focus on what is.

All things considered: crappy relationship with parents, living at home with those parents, minimum wage job, no savings. I still feel like I have a really good life. I still have tons of things to be thankful for. Things could be better, surely, but they could also be loads worse. It’s really important to keep remembering that.

It might take a long time, but I sincerely feel like everything I want for my life will happen in it’s own time. I know that KC and I will get on our own feet. I just have to keep striving.

Though while we’re talking about the home situation some can I vent to you a bit about my father? Good. Thank you.

Here is the thing…I do believe my dad is a good person. He let KC live with us when she had no where to go and he does always try to help people when he can. Sometimes I just feel like he gets too wrapped up in things to really see himself.

I remember when I was younger he used to always buy presents for these kids at church that came from poorer families. He was always showering those kids with attention and of course I know why now. I knew why then. I just always wished he would have paid that much attention to me. It wasn’t about the gifts. It was just that continual feeling of never being good enough. I still feel that way.

That’s not really the point though. The point is I grew up with a father that did good things for other people just because it was right. I grew up with a father that (even though he thought (thinks?) “colored” was the proper term for black people always taught me never to judge people by anything other that their character and their actions. Parents that made sure I watched Shindler’s List and Roots. Parents that made sure to take me to the Holocaust Museum before I was really even young enough to understand it to make sure I understood how horrible those things were. I remember at 8 years old reading the quote, “History that is forgotten is doomed to be repeated”. I really took those things to heart.

I never wanted to be the sort of person that listened to stereotypes. I love learning about other cultures. I think it’s extremely important to learn about the history of those cultures and races no matter how difficult it is to hear about. Whenever I’m viewing or reading something particularly painful I remind myself that if someone had to live through this I can handle hearing about it. I think it’s really important.

That might be why it’s so hard for me to see these changes in my father, one of the people who helped instill these lessons in me.

He’s changing. I don’t know if it’s getting older or the fact that all of the sudden (in the past 5 years or less) gotten completely (and I mean completely) obsessed with the Vietnam war.

He used to only have a thing against Asian people. Understandable perhaps? I never really thought so and he didn’t used to bring it up. Once he went on a Disney cruise and they were having some sort of…I don’t know retreat? In any case there were hundreds of Vietnamese people on the ship. My father was really religious at the time and my mother and I teased that perhaps God was trying to tell him something. (AKA your prejudice is ridiculous and maybe you should start seeing that these people are just like everyone else.)  No. He had the audacity to complain to the staff! That was the beginning.

Now it’s not at all uncommon for him to send absurdly racist even sexist forwards to, well pretty much everyone. He makes comments about other races all the time. I was talking with my hands the other day as I am wont to do and he asked me if I was Italian. When he tells a (bigoted) joke and I don’t laugh he says things like, “yeah you probably didn’t get that one, you’re a blonde”.

All he ever does is talk about “the war”. He spends his free time going to events with all his new veteran events, building a website for veterans in his group, looking up names of people he served with and cold calling in hopes it’s them and they want to join his groups, etc…He has even gone on multiple reunions to other states to meet up with these people! My father is 60. He served in Vietnam for 9 months as an engineer when he was 18. I get that war sucks, but I can’t imagine spending my entire life so wrapped up and obsessive about such a small portion of it.

He has also been keeping very odd hours. KC doesn’t get home until 2:30 am and sometimes we’ll stay up together and watch some TV downstairs. We don’t have TV in our room so it’s pretty much our only chance to watch any shows. Lately at 3:00 am or later he’ll be awake down there sitting in his recliner working on his website or (as of late) cleaning his guns. Yes! My father is up in the wee hours of the morning cleaning his pistol!!

On another note, aren’t you supposed to have a permit for those things? Who would give a possibly mentally unstable older man a gun! Guns!

If there is one thing I abhor it’s weapons. I hate living in that house knowing there are multiple guns. It makes me feel extremely unsettled.

The last thing I want to mention is that fact that he is replacing his real family with these army people. For thanksgiving he wanted us to go to one of his new friend’s homes instead of my aunts, which is our family tradition. Then he found out recently that that “friend” wasn’t even a real veteran and had been lying to them and the VA in order to get free benefits.

It just doesn’t make sense to me. I feel like his is not the same person anymore. I have been keeping track of the things he and my mom have been saying to me in the last few weeks as a sort of experiment and neither of them has had one nice thing to say to me.

I could go on and on and on.

Thanks for letting me vent. I really love this blog.