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STUPID SHIRT

4 April 2018, 12:06

Yup.

I do think its all a punishment.

My life hasn’t been the smoothest in the past 6 months, but it was slowly getting better. I even went to Asheville and set free a little of my anxiety and started trusting the future again.

Till today.

I wasn’t doing great, but I was keeping my head at the waterline. I was broke but everything was going to get paid. I have a job, and what I thought was a really decent car.

Till this morning.

The car flipped out and shut down. I pulled over. Smoke and steam was coming out the engine, there was a crack in the reservoir and it smelled of gasoline and antifreeze. This was a Volvo that I paid $2700 for in November – one with 140k miles on it, and that, by all the standards of what the mechanic/everybody said, was a great car. I had just put two new tires on it, had it serviced and paid the insurance. I had just drove the thing to Asheville. I really LIKED this car. I bought new stickers for it.

This car. This car blew a head gasket. And to fix a head gasket on a Volvo is 2-3k. If I tried really hard, I might be able to dig up enough to buy you lunch right now.

I’m pulled over on the on-ramp, calling tow trucks, trying to get my credit card limit extended, calling my mechanic. All the tow people wanted a ton of money and/or weren’t answering. In TOTAL desperation, I texted Dingus asking for the tow number to his guy. They never got back to me. My mechanic gave me his tow guy’s number, and I sat there trying not to cry. I looked down and realized that I was wearing the exact same outfit, the exact same stripey shirt that I was wearing when the first car blew up. This is some demon possessed shirt, and I’m seriously (not shitting you) thinking of burning it.

The dealer guy who sold me the car is right next to my mechanic so I went over there because I needed a car. I ended up bawling, angry at Doug, angry at the world, angry at all this shit. This is TWICE I’ve been sitting in his office, bawling. I need to pay him therapy money.

The dealer and I were going over all the options of how I could get a car from him. Most of which involve me having a bunch of money NOW. But he was willing to do some dealing and bend some rules. If the cheap cavalier doesn’t come through, I’m going back up there and see what I can do about getting some decent transport.

I had to call work and tell them. You just don’t KNOW how much that gutted me. I always felt like a responsible, reliable employee, and now, in the last 5 months I feel like I’m a giant failure and that I’m about to be fired for being such a flake.

And you know what tops it all off? I get a snarky text from Doug saying “Your Welcome”…. self absorbed prick. You would think, if someone is asking you for a tow number, someone who HASN’T talked or texted you since February, that things are pretty bad if I was desperate enough to ask for a number. But. It’s all about him, and how hard shit is on him. He had TWO vehicles and about 12k when he left. My car had just blown up, but NO, I didn’t get to have the station wagon. I didn’t get to have half the 12k – I have as much right to that as he did. I help him in his life to this point – and it was real sacrifices I made for him the last seven years – I helped him get that 12k. The money he gave me, went to buying that now defunct car, and to pay for a divorce he wanted.

I keep thinking and reminding myself that there are others in far more desperate circumstances, and others with far less going for them. It just feels like this is the point where its all going to go REALLY bad. I get jobless, I get homeless, and my dogs get taken away. I see me in the most dire of circumstances, and I’m really scared. But I know that’s probably not going to be the case. I’m just so angry right now at why Doug can be such a prick and a self pitying one at that. I’m just so SCARED that things will go even more south right now.

Half my brain says, you’ll handle this, it will be all right, and the other half is scared and angry. Par for the course I guess.

I’m going to cry and have a beer. And then I’m going to burn this bad luck, demon possessed, car blowing up, stripey fucking shirt.