Trouble comes in threes

I really thought I could dodge the third disaster.

First the furnace went out, and on the coldest patch of the year, too.

Then, the water was shut off, and I had to fiddle around with My Box in order to get it turned back on.


So I paid ransoms to the utility companies, made sure my car insurance was current (and got my current id tags since I didn't have them) and handled a bunch of other stuff in order to try to stave off a third disaster.


HA.

Last night my taillights wouldn't turn off.
No, it wasn't the brake; the upper light was off. The tail lights just wouldn't shut off. I don't switch them on and off either; my car has daytime running lights and so it decides what my headlights/taillights do.
It decided to leave the rear lights on.

I tried to find the fuse to pull, so I could get some sleep and figure it out in the morning.
There's not a fuse for that; there's a relay. I haven't fooled around with relays so I didn't mess with it.

This morning, she started up ok.
At work, I came out on my lunch hour to start her up again and let her run for a bit. She was crabby about it but did it.
After work, she wouldn't do anything.
I tried to jump start her.
Nothing.
Not one thing.

Sigh.

So now what I wanted to do was remove the battery, take it to Autozone (or somewhere similar) and have them charge it up for me. Assuming that a fully dead battery is the actual problem, I would then drive her to my preferred mechanic (Frank and Mike) and leave her with a note, then call in the morning.
My ratchets are all inadequate to the task.
Son of a monkey.
My other half has a ratchet that turns, so I can swivel it from above. I can't get it to loosen, only tighten.
Thing Two came up with a ratchet set, but the extender wasn't long enough for the job.

So I have one 16mm bolt that is preventing me from removing the gorram battery.
And I'm out of light, and spoons, and f*cks to give.

Tomorrow, I have a ride to work and home again. I'm going to try to find an extender so I can remove that stupid bolt. Hopefully I can get the damn thing out of the truck, charged up, returned to the truck, and the truck moved to a mechanic. At which point, I don't need it again until Wednesday. However, I have to have it on Wednesday or I can't do what I have planned for Wednesday and Thursday. (which was a nice treat to counterbalance the shit weekend, and the grueling previous week.)

And yeah, I am well aware that my being The Working Poor makes all of this suck extra. If I were well-off, I'd just call AAA and have them tow it to the garage to fix. I can't afford AAA and I probably can't afford to have the poor thing fixed.

If I were rich, I wouldn't have had the problem in the first place; I'd own a new truck every three years.

If I were wealthy, I'd just drive a different vehicle. I'd have plenty to choose from.

Then again, if I were wealthy, I wouldn't be worried about getting to work extra early on a Sunday. I'd have been sleeping in on my excellent mattress.

Fix-it

You know, I recently told a friend of mine that literally all of my problems can be solved with money.

And it's really true.

I'm not saying that all my problems are money-oriented. I have a myriad of problems to deal with all the time. However, I have the skill set to handle most of them, and the things I can't handle are nearly always related to money directly.

Sometimes it gets hard to swim upstream. Sometimes I no longer have any energy to deal with my shit.
But if I was able to solve the problems that money can solve, it would mean that those problems weren't sucking down my emotional resources, so I'd have more to choose from for my other issues.

I know all of this because I was once part of a household that was stable, financially. When I first started dating my S.O., he was occasionally freaked out about the way I'd handle certain things, but when I'd explain that I can't afford to handle things the easy way, and that this was my workaround, he'd usually nod and smile and encourage me.
And sometimes he'd help out with the money.

But the fact remains that his money was his money and my money was my money. I wasn't living off of him. I paid my share of the rent. I bought all the groceries, and most of the household goods like paper products and the like. I paid my own car payment and insurance.

But he always had the rent on time. He paid the utilities on time. (er, well, usually.) When he'd want to go out to dinner, he'd just say, "Let's go out" and he'd pick up the tab because he knew I had the grocery situation under control.

Our cars were insured, with comprehensive coverage.
He paid child support for his two kids.
We had renter's insurance when we were renting.
We had water, and electricity, and gas service, and the like.
We went to cons and preregistered, with a hotel that we didn't have to share with anyone unless we wanted to.

We were talking about bringing in guests for local conventions on our dime, just to have them there.

He wasn't wealthy. He wasn't even rich. He was "comfortable".

And under the circumstances, a lot of drama left my life. I was getting to work on time. I was managing my own emotional baggage (and doing a pretty good job of it.) I was untangling years of codependent behaviors and finally figuring out who I wanted to be.

Not only is he gone (and let's face it; we always brought out the best in each other) but his income is also gone. This house is far more than I can handle on my own.

As a result I've had roommate drama, crisis after crisis, panicked last-minute trying to save the house craziness, and more. My IBS is ripping me to shreds, my back is killing me all the time, and I can't seem to get to work on time (even though until now the truck has been running fine.)
I read book one of the Hunger Games. I get it: When every waking moment is spent figuring out how you're not going to starve to death, it gets hard to make long term goals or plans. It gets hard to see past the next 24 hours, much less "Save for the future" or do something about that awful government.

If it weren't for the carefully cultivated moments of joy I've been blessed with in the last year, I don't think I would have made it.
You'd have been reading about me in the news, not reading about my life in this blog.

So yeah. The only problems in my life that I can't fix under my own power are the ones related directly to money.
Money would fix my life so well that I could focus on helping other people, which is what I'd prefer to be doing. I could focus on the convention, and my embroidery business, and keeping the surfaces in my house clear.
As it stands, I'm a hot mess.