(no subject)

Last month I bought another year of insurance on the car, as a way of finalizing my decision to keep it.

I am starting to think that I have done things in the wrong order again.

How funny it would be if today's trend continues, and every creditor declines me (even Toyota Financial, through whom I took out the five-year lease that ends in two days, thumbs-downed me; bad sign) and I'll have to give the fully-insured car back to Toyota anyway. I... was not counting on this happening.

This is actually pretty bad, and potentially means that I can't have any car at all. Wow, man.

Car going away

Dear me. The situation is looking quite hopeless. My credit union in Maine let me put in a loan application over the phone after I got the bad news from Toyota, and they just called back to say that it wouldn't work due to past payment delinquency on the car's lease, of which I have had plenty -- especially during my little experiment with poverty this past spring.

Oh, I bet that was in fact what did it, since it was only a few months ago. This didn't even occur to me. No doubt my credit rating is lodged firmly in the Don't Even Bother category for a few months to come, at least, while I slowly prove to the world that I am capable of regularly paying bills again. Man...

Well. I really wasn't expecting any of this to come about. What an unpleasant surprise. I'll almost surely have to drop off ol' Car at the Watertown Toyota joint come Monday, and ride the bus back in disgrace. What a sad thing.

Strangely, I feel some relief at the news. I was too financially clueless to realize that another shoe was due to drop from all the money trouble I got into earlier this year. Now that it has, the initial surprise and confusion gives way to a realization that this, losing my car, is my final punishment for mishandling my money, and that it could have been much worse. If this had happened while living in any city except for this one, with its no-joke fine public transportation system that I use every day... brr, I couldn't imagine it.

Car is still very useful, though, for hauling groceries and other cargo, getting to places outside of T coverage, and occasionally escaping to Maine. Boy, I'm now more or less entirely cut off from that last option. Bummer. There goes my plans for a Bangor weekend alone. Well... Bangor does have a municipal bus (unless they've shut it down in since 1994, the last time I used it regularly). In theory, I could still visit, and make use of that, and be like old times. Maybe, maybe.

How will I get to the freaks' game foo in two weeks? Take the bus, I guess. And the walk to Matt's house for the Star Wars thing isn't so bad.

Erg. Fooey on sudden, forcible lifestyle changes. This is like getting laid off again.

Yay

My mom reports that she told all the non-costumed, teen-aged trick-or-treaters at her door that they had to sing Jingle Bells while standing on one foot before they would get a piece of candy.