It's hell getting old

I decided recently that my car just isn't going to last me long enough to get to the farm. The front end is shaking badly, the tires are nearly bald, brakes need replaced, etc etc etc etc etc.

So I went to my friendly neighborhood car dealership, the kind that lets you borrow money if you're a poor bastard like me, you know, the buy here pay here kind... Anyway, we looked at my credit report, looked at some cars, and they were really willing to work with me. It was surprising, considering how really shitty my credit is and always has been. I don't know if it would have really gone all the way to a scene of me driving something off the lot, but it was something I needed to experience.

I needed to know if all hope was lost yet. I needed to know if they would have just laughed me out of the building. There was a time when I had no credit (which they say is worse than having bad credit, but we all know that's a load of bull), and I had to use a co-signer for a car. Technically, my dad was the initial loanee and I was his cosigner (made the interest rate on the loan better), but I made all the payments. That was my first real newer car, and I loved it. Then Dad filed bankruptcy and the car got repo'd as if I was just a side-show fool.

So now I'm working through all my debt, awakened by the idea that someone may one day actually let me buy a car that doesn't shimmy down the road. I might one day drive a car that has a radio that wasn't stolen, windshield wipers that actually move, and the car may also be eerily silent (the one I have now always sounds like a big bird fight is happening in the back seat). I've got repayment plans all happening at once, we're eating less expensive food (hence the lack of anything cool on my food blog), and we're trying to make it to July.

July will be the last payment to the company who now owns the loan on the Saab. The Saab was the car that decided to have a cracked head gasket after a long trip to Tennessee. It still ran, but smoked terribly. No one wanted to touch it or even look at it for less than $2k. So I let them take it back.

The car I'm driving now is a lot like me. It has parts that are loose and things that are broken and neglected. It makes weird noises, but still gets to work every day. It never fails to start, but it's hard to steer. It's getting older, and the frame is all but rusted away completely. One day (hopefully in August!) it'll be replaced by something smaller and faster and cleaner and consumes less fuel, but until then it dutifully clangs down the road.