This is a story that deserves full telling.
So, there's a bit in my journal from a couple weeks ago about $1200 worth of car repairs. Early in March during our only snowstorm of the season, I lost control on a curve and slid sideways into the curb. Bent the passenger-side wheel rim and damaged a lot of parts connected to the brakes, bearings, etc. $1200 worth of repairs - because the shop kept testing it and finding the alignment way off, so they kept looking for things on both sides to fix until the alignment finally balanced. "Subtle" things they said, that couldn't be seen with the naked eye but computer testing said was busted. Filed an insurance claim for collision, which covered about $800 of it, all to the passenger side since that was what I hit - driver's side repairs were all on me. Thanks a lot.
Fast forward to Thursday. We load up the car, drive across town to
johinnabara's workplace to leave both sets of house keys for the two kind coworkers who agreed to look in on Mai twice a day while we were gone. Finally get on the road, get driving, out past the Dells, almost to the 90/94 interchange, when suddenly, abruptly, for no reason, the car starts developing a hum or whine - a very loud sound. It came out of nowhere, I hit nothing and did nothing unusual. Junabi was on the phone with her mom so when she got off I asked her if she could hear it and started panicking. We pulled over at the nearest exit - the middle of bumfuck nowhere - and managed to get directed to a small garage. The guy put it up to verify that there was something wrong, and sure enough, the wheel bearings are "not right." I told him I JUST had work done on that area of the car not two weeks ago, and he said it was probably related. We were too far along, we had no choice but to continue to the Twin Cities. Junabi's mom found us a place to take it in, once we got there and unloaded the luggage. I could go no faster than 55 the entire way, or else the whine got so loud and I was afraid of the wheel falling off/losing control/bad shit. Fortunately, we got it in Thursday night before the place closed and they said they'd look at it first thing in the morning.
Junabi's mom is awesome and suggested we rent a car for the weekend, since Enterprise was having a cheap weekend deal. So we did, so we could still get back and forth from Detour and run out to SR Harris (my ENTIRE REASON FOR GOING) without issues. Heard nothing from the car place until we touched base with THEM, apparently they couldn't get the parts in MN or WI and had to look to Iowa to get them. On Monday. Great. So we made arrangements for me to stay with friends until Monday while Junabi caught a Megabus back so she could relieve our cat-sitters and go to work on Monday. Oh, did I mention we were also waiting on my taxes to be done so I could turn in a copy to the townhouse-rental office where we were desperately waiting to be approved? We're down to the wire and if we wasted time or got turned down, we'd be homeless in a month. Oh, and my rent is due, too. At least I had a weekend AT Detour in which to more or less forget that this horrible thing was happening to me. I was so beyond despondent and pissed that I just couldn't feel a thing anymore. I blocked it out (successfully, which really disturbs me actually) and had a pretty good time at the con. Successful customer shopping. Talked shop with Felix Needleworthy and Scoundrelle's Keep. Hung out with the delightful Zen. Then Chibi and Snow took me home to see their new house and pet kitties and have food and a shower and real sleep.
Monday morning, the garage calls Junabi's cell before I can even get up to call them. Parts? HAHAHAHAHA. Parts have to come from a dealer now. Tuesday. And $500 more expensive. Enraged, but not much I can do. Spent the day sobbing my eyes out and then reading manga from Chibi & Snow's epic manga library, and watching Tiger & Bunny. Call them again on Tuesday. Oh yeah, we have the parts now, the cheerful derp at the garage says, but it won't be finished until tomorrow. Wednesday. Yeah.
So, I've been stranded in the Twin Cities for THREE DAYS. Thankfully I was staying with awesome friends who fed me and did my laundry so I have clean clothes, but I had nothing to do, couldn't do more than briefly glance at my email (since I couldn't really answer any work email without my files and couldn't monopolize a laptop for hours to RP and read lolcats), couldn't work, oh and had to go without my medication for two days. I was completely helpless, essentially homeless, and very bad things went through my mind. All I could do was sit and read manga, it was pathetic. I called the garage today around noon and they were all "oh, it's done!" WHEN WERE YOU GOING TO FUCKING CALL ME?! I left them THREE additional phone numbers - Junabi's mom, and both Chibi and Snow's cells, so they could reach me. I could have been sitting there still. Thank god I was being a nag. I had to pick up all our con luggage at Junabi's house, since she could only take one bag home with her on Sunday, and finally got on the road about 2. Noticed that there is a small but rather obvious vibration in the wheels still.
Fuck. Everything.
Tomorrow when I have a clear head I'm going to call Dave's Auto (I can't face that guy in person) and demand a refund because his shop performed faulty repairs. The MN guy said that there was an entire part missing from my wheel bearings on the passenger side that made them lock up, and he couldn't figure how the last repair guy missed that the strut was bent. I repeat. The strut. Was bent. And Dave's Auto missed it. I am BEYOND pissed. I'm numb. The repairs in MN were an additional $1200, some of which I used the insurance settlement to pay and the rest my mom had to pick up again. She's covered $1600 worth of this fiasco. I feel so wretched that she had to do that. I'll get my rent in tomorrow - the LAST day of the grace period - and I have to self-medicate extra this week in the desperate hope that being without meds for two days won't fuck up my system so much that I get depressed again.
The only plus side of this entire fucked up clusterfuck of epic fucking disasterness, if you can call it a plus, is that Junabi called the townhouse office and asked them to go ahead and start the process of reviewing our applications, and explained the situation. I would get my tax form to them when I got home, whenever that might be. Apparently, they didn't need it. 24 hours later we were approved. We will be moving into The Pines, a 3-bedroom townhouse in Fitchburg (south side of Madison), and taking on a third roommate. We sign the lease tomorrow. I'll know then what the moving schedule will be like. But I have two urgent deadlines to deal with first, those commissions need to be out of this house before we move. I'm hoping my taxes are also ready, but I don't want to know what I'm going to have to pay in for self-employment until tomorrow, when I'm clear-headed.
Right now all I'm going to do is take a long, hot bath, and then read lolcats until I'm caught up. And the new chapter of One Piece. Everything else, including RP, can wait.