I should've known it'd be a lousy day from the moment the cat woke the household up by stepping on the TV remote and jacking the sound to 11 and scaring us out of our wits.
We've been having some pretty nasty financial woes of late, but things were starting to look up--there's some light on the job horizon for both of us, we sold off some stuff we didn't need, that kind of thing--and my husband and I agreed this morning that we felt optimistic.
Never, ever announce to the universe that you're feeling optimistic.
My husband drives over to the park for his morning jog while I stay home to man the phones in case one of us gets called back about a job. When the phone rings, it's not a job offer. It's my husband saying, "I'm fine, but I've been in an accident." The important thing is that HE is okay, obviously, but once he's squared away, it's time to look at insurance and get that straightened out. Thank goodness we had it, right?
Wrong.
At some point in time--we don't even know when, exactly--collision insurance disappeared. Oh, we have comprehensive insurance and liability insurance on the car, but not collision insurance. I lose eighty IQ points when I hear the word "insurance," so I don't know a blessed thing about it, but I THINK that means we're screwed when it comes to having the car fixed. (No one was at fault, by the way--it was a wet street and both cars slid into one another, no tickets issued, no one hurt.)
Then we find that tow truck companies are not kind folks who clear the roads and take care of your sick car until it goes in for surgery. Nooooo! They are rapacious mongrels who'd feast on their own mother's entrails! They towed it to their lot ($215), held it for two hours ($75), wanted to charge us 18 bucks a day for "storage fees" if we'd left the car there, charged us a "gate fee" for releasing it ($70), and that left us with another 75 bucks that we paid to the OTHER towing company because we sure as **** didn't want to put any more money in the pockets of the feeding piranhas that had already consumed so much of our flesh.
I know it could've been so much worse, and I know people endure far more hardship than our current financial woes, but...man, today has been rough. (One bright spot: it hasn't chased me off my plan.)
"Tow truck company employee" has now sunk below "snake oil peddler," "repo chick," and "pet psychic" on my list of jobs I am too softheartedto do. What shakedown artists! If anyone has insurance advice, tales of commiseration, or just a pat on the shoulder, I'd really welcome any of the above.