Bad to worse

[sanpaku_backup]

And you thought that part about South Providence junkies was rhetorical excess. I get to the auto body shop at 2 pm today, and the car is just sitting there out in the open. There's a paper bag filled with a spoon and a dish and the remnants of someone's lunch in the front seat. Most significantly, the digital camera is nowhere to be found. Neither is S.'s green Pendleton blanket, which meant a lot to her. The guy said that it was only put out there in the morning for the appraiser, but as I said, the front door wouldn't close, so anyone could come and go as they pleased. And to think I thought I got everything of value from the car on Saturday night...

This was on top of an already unhappy day. The appraiser showed up in the morning and, according to the auto body guy, "stopped counting when he got to 35 [hundred] -- he didn't even get to all the little things." Apparently the car was hit in the worst place for a car to be hit; the entire side would have to be taken off to fix some kind of joint in the door, and the thing's leaking transmission fluid from where the axle went into the engine.

With all the mileage the car was only worth $3K. So, it's a total. It's a goddamn shame; the car would have lasted at least another two years. It didn't require a single serious repair in six and a half years/145,000 miles. (It could be considered paid off or not, depending; I am still paying off the student loan I took out to afford it, but that's not really the same thing. If we had an actual car loan it would be paid off by now, but the pain between then and now would be much higher.) We would be very lucky indeed to do that well again. And it had a lot of memories. We took our honeymoon in that car; it was everywhere we were for our whole marriage, and all that. The auto body guy wondered if I was a salesman or something because there were so many maps lying around.

And I have to contemplate some kind of new or used car, something I really would not enjoy in the best of circumstances. Either get some shitbox or take on another car payment for years. And next week I have to travel twice for the Board, so I have no time to shop for cars now. So I caved in to reality and called my folks and told them we were not coming for Thanksgiving. We all feel pretty devastated about that in its own right, too.

Capped off the day by pointlessly going to the brand-new Providence Police Palace to report the camera stolen. Pointless because a $250 theft deductable doesn't help you with a $200 camera, but who knows, maybe it (or the Pendleton) will turn up somewhere. Filing a report entailed standing in front of a three-inch-thick window screaming my information at some drone inside, while competing with two other people at adjacent windows doing the same thing. (Why exactly would it be bad to give someone the form to write down their own information?)

So, to review: some rich, drunk Saab-driving bitch makes a mistake, and we are out a car, a camera, a sentimental blanket, this year's Thanksgiving, and probably another couple thousand bucks at least for another car. This will seem better soon, right?

Comments

[cellio]

Argh. How frustrating! And right before a holiday visit with family, naturally.

Good luck in finding an adequate replacement. It sounds like a decent used car -- not a junk pile, not a brand-new car -- might be the best thing for you in the long term, assuming you can get through the financial hit of the short term. (The problem with buying a cheap pile of junk, of course, is that every time you need to repair something you'll angst over how the cost of the repair compares to the cost of the car.)

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

We tend to be of the "new car" tribe rather than the "used car" tribe, for no logical reason. Just how I tend to think. However, maybe if we can find an almost-new car, that would be best. We could avoid a lot of the debt and get most of the benefits. We'll see!

[cellio]

If you have the financial wherewithall to buy new, I think that's better. It costs more, but you get exactly what you want and you have a decent warranty against faults. (Your, um, mileage may differ.) I was under the impression that you were trying to decide between cheap used and moderate used; sorry 'bout that.

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

Well, nothing is certain. My folks are helping us, so I am looking for something better than cheap at this point, I think. Mileage, uh, yeah -- we burned through that pretty quick. 24K miles a year will do that. And I don't even commute to work! :-)

[alsoname.livejournal.com]

That sucks ass.

I wish I could say something more uplifting.