luscious_purple (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
luscious_purple) wrote2016-11-30 05:09 pm
luscious_purple) wrote2016-11-30 05:09 pm
The continuing aftermath of November 2016
By and large, it's been a rough month, punctuated only by a few better moments.
I hope everyone who celebrated U.S. Thanksgiving a few days ago had an enjoyable holiday. I did -- as I have for the past 15 or so Turkey Days, I went to my friend T.H.'s home, where I joined her extended family. Everybody contributed something, nobody shouted about Trump (we're all LGBT-friendly people, disgusted with the Giant Lying Russian Stooge), and everybody had a good time.
This year, however, I did NOT drive to T.H.'s house in my longtime motor vehicle. Those days are over.
My 1996 Sunfire, a.k.a. "Patty's Pretty Purple Pontiac," a.k.a. "Baby," is destined for the sunset after 20.5 years of mostly faithful service (the transmission failure on the road to Pennsic 40 being a notable exception).
It had been making engine noise while I was driving around (though not while the engine was just idling), so I thought there was a small hole in the exhaust system somewhere. The day before the election, I went over to a friend's house so he could take a look at it. He had a pair of those metal ramps that you can use to lift up a car, but I thought they were too rusty for the job -- I didn't want the ramps to collapse on my friend. So he said I could drive up the car on the curb (thus raising one side of the car above the other). Plus, we used the jack to provide a bit of additional clearance. I spent $25 on some muffler-bracket-type parts and he installed them. All seemed well, but I had to get going to the pre-election meeting to set up the polling stations (remember, I worked as an election judge).
In the despair of Nov. 9, the interim minister at my church sent out a message saying he was holding a gathering "in community and friendship" at the Meeting House that evening. I started driving there, but soon realized that my car's steering was feeling awfully "squirrelly" and the car was pulling to the left, so I turned around and went home. It was time to get the professionals involved.
Verdict, a week later: The frame has been bending and there are rust holes in the chassis itself. The mechanics at the local "auto & truck" garage (the place to which everyone in town says "you should really take your car there") didn't give me a cost estimate to fix it, because they said it is unsafe to drive and should have been junked *last* year.
*sigh*
My Pontiac was the first car I ever bought brand-new (and probably the last, given my finances). I purchased it on the day that a neighbor of mine threw a baby shower for another woman in my congregation. That baby is now in college. I also remember driving my new Sunfire up to my mother's house in Massachusetts and giving her a ride in it. (Her reaction to the dark purple color: "I thought it was going to be really loud, but it's not.") She died several months later, but at least she got to see me drive around in a nice, reliable car.
Right now the Pontiac is sitting outside my condo. It's less than 2,500 miles from the 200,000-mile mark, and the engine runs just fine. It outlived the dealership from which I purchased it (Bob Banning in New Carrollton) and carried me to and from several jobs and lots of fun times.
Why is my car at my condo? Because I don't want to pay storage fees or have it towed away. It's still legally registered and insured, so it is OK for me to park it here. The mechanics gave me the phone number of a salvage dealer who might pay a smidgen more than Brandywine Auto Parts. After all, there are a ton of usable parts on this thing. My mother used to fret that my sunroof would leak like the one on her friend's daughter's car, but in 20.5 years that has never happened.
What am I doing for transportation? To be honest, I have driven it a couple of times around the center of my little suburb, where the speed limit is 25 mph, to get groceries. However, I do not feel safe bringing it up to highway speed, or even near that. The mechanic warned me that if I get into an accident, I will be liable for having driven an unsafe car. (Quite honestly, when I drove it a bit today, slowly and on wet streets, the steering problem seemed worse than before. Is it possible that the frame is bending more even while the car is standing still?)
I can walk around town too (I live in a reasonably walkable community), and I can take the bus to the Metro station (even though Metrorail really SUCKS nowadays). I will occasionally ask for rides, but I do NOT want to be "that person" who always begs for transportation and then wonders why nobody wants to give her a ride. If it means that I can't go to events I would otherwise have attended, well, that's just a part of my "sucks to be me" situation. Everybody else earns the money to support their lifestyles. Why should I mooch off of them?
So, what do I do about a new car? I'm pretty sure that I don't qualify for any kind of financing. I certainly wouldn't give *myself* a loan. So I need to buy an older model (beater, jalopy, hoopty, etc.) that will pass Maryland inspection and run for a few years.
What's my budget? I am still figuring it out. As small as possible, but remember that a $700 car that needs $2300 of work to be legally registered under a new owner really costs $3000.
I wish I could just get myself to Carmax, but that place doesn't seem to sell anything under $7000 and I don't see myself being able to afford that anytime soon.
I'm really caught between the proverbial rock and hard place, folks ... without reliable transportation, it's even harder to find temporary or permanent employment, but without an additional source of income, I can't afford wheels. I have no idea what my health insurance costs will be next year ... they are already going up a lot under Obamacare, but I am NOT counting on Obamacare to last past January 20. Seriously.
Gaah, I don't know what to do. First-world problem, I know.
I hope everyone who celebrated U.S. Thanksgiving a few days ago had an enjoyable holiday. I did -- as I have for the past 15 or so Turkey Days, I went to my friend T.H.'s home, where I joined her extended family. Everybody contributed something, nobody shouted about Trump (we're all LGBT-friendly people, disgusted with the Giant Lying Russian Stooge), and everybody had a good time.
This year, however, I did NOT drive to T.H.'s house in my longtime motor vehicle. Those days are over.
My 1996 Sunfire, a.k.a. "Patty's Pretty Purple Pontiac," a.k.a. "Baby," is destined for the sunset after 20.5 years of mostly faithful service (the transmission failure on the road to Pennsic 40 being a notable exception).
It had been making engine noise while I was driving around (though not while the engine was just idling), so I thought there was a small hole in the exhaust system somewhere. The day before the election, I went over to a friend's house so he could take a look at it. He had a pair of those metal ramps that you can use to lift up a car, but I thought they were too rusty for the job -- I didn't want the ramps to collapse on my friend. So he said I could drive up the car on the curb (thus raising one side of the car above the other). Plus, we used the jack to provide a bit of additional clearance. I spent $25 on some muffler-bracket-type parts and he installed them. All seemed well, but I had to get going to the pre-election meeting to set up the polling stations (remember, I worked as an election judge).
In the despair of Nov. 9, the interim minister at my church sent out a message saying he was holding a gathering "in community and friendship" at the Meeting House that evening. I started driving there, but soon realized that my car's steering was feeling awfully "squirrelly" and the car was pulling to the left, so I turned around and went home. It was time to get the professionals involved.
Verdict, a week later: The frame has been bending and there are rust holes in the chassis itself. The mechanics at the local "auto & truck" garage (the place to which everyone in town says "you should really take your car there") didn't give me a cost estimate to fix it, because they said it is unsafe to drive and should have been junked *last* year.
*sigh*
My Pontiac was the first car I ever bought brand-new (and probably the last, given my finances). I purchased it on the day that a neighbor of mine threw a baby shower for another woman in my congregation. That baby is now in college. I also remember driving my new Sunfire up to my mother's house in Massachusetts and giving her a ride in it. (Her reaction to the dark purple color: "I thought it was going to be really loud, but it's not.") She died several months later, but at least she got to see me drive around in a nice, reliable car.
Right now the Pontiac is sitting outside my condo. It's less than 2,500 miles from the 200,000-mile mark, and the engine runs just fine. It outlived the dealership from which I purchased it (Bob Banning in New Carrollton) and carried me to and from several jobs and lots of fun times.
Why is my car at my condo? Because I don't want to pay storage fees or have it towed away. It's still legally registered and insured, so it is OK for me to park it here. The mechanics gave me the phone number of a salvage dealer who might pay a smidgen more than Brandywine Auto Parts. After all, there are a ton of usable parts on this thing. My mother used to fret that my sunroof would leak like the one on her friend's daughter's car, but in 20.5 years that has never happened.
What am I doing for transportation? To be honest, I have driven it a couple of times around the center of my little suburb, where the speed limit is 25 mph, to get groceries. However, I do not feel safe bringing it up to highway speed, or even near that. The mechanic warned me that if I get into an accident, I will be liable for having driven an unsafe car. (Quite honestly, when I drove it a bit today, slowly and on wet streets, the steering problem seemed worse than before. Is it possible that the frame is bending more even while the car is standing still?)
I can walk around town too (I live in a reasonably walkable community), and I can take the bus to the Metro station (even though Metrorail really SUCKS nowadays). I will occasionally ask for rides, but I do NOT want to be "that person" who always begs for transportation and then wonders why nobody wants to give her a ride. If it means that I can't go to events I would otherwise have attended, well, that's just a part of my "sucks to be me" situation. Everybody else earns the money to support their lifestyles. Why should I mooch off of them?
So, what do I do about a new car? I'm pretty sure that I don't qualify for any kind of financing. I certainly wouldn't give *myself* a loan. So I need to buy an older model (beater, jalopy, hoopty, etc.) that will pass Maryland inspection and run for a few years.
What's my budget? I am still figuring it out. As small as possible, but remember that a $700 car that needs $2300 of work to be legally registered under a new owner really costs $3000.
I wish I could just get myself to Carmax, but that place doesn't seem to sell anything under $7000 and I don't see myself being able to afford that anytime soon.
I'm really caught between the proverbial rock and hard place, folks ... without reliable transportation, it's even harder to find temporary or permanent employment, but without an additional source of income, I can't afford wheels. I have no idea what my health insurance costs will be next year ... they are already going up a lot under Obamacare, but I am NOT counting on Obamacare to last past January 20. Seriously.
Gaah, I don't know what to do. First-world problem, I know.