Monday, December 6, 2010

Day 5

In the immortal words of a former co-worker, 'If it's not one thing, it's 15.'

Truer words were never spoken. It seems lately that any time we finish dealing with one crisis, another one sprouts up in its place like something out of a horror movie. Back when I was pregnant with my daughter, we got slapped in the face ON CHRISTMAS DAY by the state globbing onto our entire bank balance to cover back child support my husband hadn't paid because he (through no fault of his own) defaulted on a payment agreement. Legally, support can only take a certain percentage of your paycheck for payments but if you've entered into a previous agreement, you still have to make up the difference regardless of whether or not it puts you over that threshold. In other words, if you're supposed to pay $100 every paycheck but your check is not enough and $100 would be too much so they only autopay $50, you are STILL responsible for the other $50 regardless. So, going into Christmas (and only weeks away from our daughter's birth) we went from over $3,000 in our account to a balance of -$350.

We resolved that issue, only to be slapped by the IRS a few weeks later for what they claimed was a misfiled tax return in which we owed a couple thousand dollars. Bye bye first ever tax refund in 10 years. We then settled into a relatively pain free (if not totally stress free) year. We weren't exactly out of the financial woods but nothing was looming dramatically over our heads.

Then came the first major snowfall of the season and our apartment complex's notice of intent to plow the parking lot. All cars had to be out of the lot by a certain time so the plow could go through. Back when I was still pregnant, my husband had been in a car accident in which a woman (on her cell phone) had plowed into him with her SUV while turning out of a gas station. Completely fucked up the driver's side door. Her insurance company said she was at fault and took responsibility for the repairs. However, upon actually taking possession of the vehicle to make those repairs, they determined it would be more expensive to fix the problem than what the car was actually worth. So instead, they totaled it and sent us a check. The car was still drivable but the drivers side was still completely fucked and eventually had to be taped shut because it wouldn't stay closed.

My husband's mother loaned us money to purchase a new car (well, new to us at least, it was just as old as our old one but the owner had taken better care of it than we had of ours) so the old one sat lonely and unused in the back of the lot next to the dumpster area. Cut to plow day. My husband goes out to start the car and the battery is unsurprisingly dead. We decide we'll plead our case to the property manager though we don't hold out much hope. She tells me that no, she's very sorry but (even though the car is completely out of the way) the car will be towed if it isn't moved. We figured as much however the maintenance guy overhears the conversation and offers to jump and move it for us. Hooray!

I go back upstairs, get the key and wait for news. About half an hour later, my phone rings and it's the property manager asking if there's a special trick to getting the hood open as the maintenance guy has been trying everything and cannot get it open. (On a trip to Valvolene a couple years ago, they broke the hood latch during a routine oil change) I told them no, and resigned myself again to the fact that the car in all likelihood would be towed. I still held out a tiny bit of hope though. When I didn't hear anything for another half hour or so, I finally went downstairs to check on the situation. I could tell by the look on her face that yes, in fact the car had been towed. She apologized, gave me back the key, and that was the end of it.

The end of it until we got the bill that is. $320 for the tow, $35 for every day the towing company kept it stored on the lot. It's been more than 2 weeks and the car is still there with no signs of coming home any time soon.

Jesus wept.

I'm not really all that upset or angry about the car getting towed, and neither is my husband. We'd both kind of accepted it, like when an old sick relative finally dies. You're just glad it's over and you start looking at the bright side. "Nellie's in a better place now." "We won't have to worry about moving her next time they plow." "At least now we don't have to pay to have someone take her away." We're more upset about the attitude the property manager took with regard to the entire situation. We understand there's rules and that she can't make exceptions for people because pretty soon nobody would be moving their cars and the lot would never get plowed. But it's not like we just refused to move the car or just didn't feel like it. We did everything humanly possible to move it, as did the maintenance guy and she even got in on it herself, sitting behind the wheel of the car trying to help pop the hood, all to no avail. And as mentioned before, it's not as if it was out in the middle of the lot in the way everything and everyone. It was tucked back, practically hidden, next to the dumpster area fence.

But, whatever. Now we just have to figure out how to pay this off. Hope they like their $5 monthly installment :P

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