March 12, 2013
-
Just Kill Me Now!
TALES FROM THE BRAT FARM
I’ve predicted it. I’ve made the statement several times over the past two years alone. Now he’s finally done it. The Beast has managed to spend damn near….and I mean VERY near….all our savings. How, do you ask? He bought another new car.
Now I admit that the Buick very suddenly took a turn for the worst. The transmission started slipping….badly. There was even a doubt that it would make it home. The estimate…ESTIMATE…was just under $4000 to replace it. I don’t think that was even with a new transmission but a rebuilt one with a warranty of some sort. I was so sick over the ESTIMATE that I missed out on what the warranty was. The Beast thought about it. I thought he was going to try calling a few places for better pricing but he decided that it wasn’t worth investing that much money in a car that old, no matter how great a shape it was in (too many miles for an American made car anyway). The gas mileage was crappy (16-19mpg in town). So he went back to the Toyota dealer in town and looked at one of their smaller cars with great gas mileage. They had this one (supposedly) 2012 Yaris on the lot. It had been used as a day lease car for people who brought their cars in for servicing and needed transportation for a day or two. End result was just 186 miles on it. Bad news…that meant those miles were all short rides for the most part. But, of course, that can easily be taken care of with just a ride to Birmingham or even a ride down to Mobile which we could easily do one weekend. We can take Chewlee with us so there’s no sitter problem for her mom if required. It’s just the car is so much smaller than the Buick and Chewlee would have to share the back with Baron…oh yeah! Good idea.
Baron is HUGE next to Chewlee (Baron..110lbs. Chewlee…42lbs.So he bought what was written up as a 2012 Toyota Yaris. We didn’t get as much of a trade-in on the Buick because of the transmission and when I heard the balance, I knew….I KNEW!…that wiped out our savings pretty much. I was sick to my stomach over that just because I knew he would find a way. Now we are going to be hurting until we are paid for the house we own in Guntersville…which is supposed to be around the end of June…OR SO. I want to go to Chicago to see my family and my girlfriends from high school that I hung out with before we all expire. We get together for a couple days every year and I’ll be damned if I am missing it. They usually plan it for when I can make it since I live the furthest away. If I have to, I will sell one of the Beast’s guns…or put that ad he keeps saying he’s going to in the paper to sell the ATV. He bought it for hunting….HA! HA! HA! HA! That’s been the biggest laugh of all. If he had to hunt for us to eat, we’d starve to death. He can’t get his ass out of bed that early in the morning, let alone that early on a COLD morning.
I admit *I* can’t but I never said I was going to hunt and fill our freezer with deer and wild turkey and antelope and moose and buffalo….only kidding on those last three but you get what I mean, I’m sure. My sister, Bratfink, when she lived in Montana, ate a lot of different meats than most of us have. She’s had bear (and even rendered the grease from one), antelope, a couple types of deer and I think she even said she’d eaten moose. When she stayed with me for several months in Florida, she found out meat assortments available to be on the paltry side. She missed the variety of meat she could get there. And her husband at the time WAS a hunter. In fact, he was a bow and arrow hunter. He even killed his bear with a bow and arrow (and he had a permit to take one that year). However, actually getting one with a bow and arrow was a real feat…without being killed, I mean, by an angry, wounded but not killed dead bear.
Anyway, here I am…torn between finding my prediction correct and anger that it WAS correct. I have a car that was found to actually be a 2013 by the gal at the DMV who discovered that fact when she went to process the Title. She called it to the Beast’s attention that the dealer had made a mistake and it was THEIR mistake because the title showed it was a 2013 and the serial numbers matched that was on the contract and the title. He had to go back to the dealer because a 2013 car, even with 186 miles on it, was entitled to a 5 year warranty, not a 3 year one. It turns out that they probably screwed themselves out of about $3000 that they COULD have charged but couldn’t go back and change it.
The car has all the goodies, including Blu-tooth, constant gas averaging, tire pressure, cruise control, Sirius radio, etc. The only fault I find with the car other than the small trunk space is there is no center console. Or, as we prefer to think of it, arm rest. But if it really gives good gas mileage, I can find a way to compensate.
Chewlee got a smiley face today. She has to wear green tomorrow because they are going to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day tomorrow with a party. I think this is the first time the Princess didn’t contribute anything to help make up the party unless she dropped something off last Thursday or Friday. She usually likes to be involved but I’ve seen that kind of taper off the last few months.
Time to get this posted and Chewlee in bed. That alarm going off at 5:30am seems to come earlier and earlier. At least, that’s how it feels to me. I miss Bratfink being online, don’t you? And it hasn’t been all that long. There are still a minimum of three more weeks before she will return to us. **Sigh**
Love you all. Have a great *Humpday*. Drive carefully. Stay safe and warm.
