2010: The Year That Just Won’t Quit

I guess it was about the middle of November when I decided that the major personal events in the year 2010 were pretty much at an and. What was left besides Christmas and New Year’s Day, right? As a matter of fact, I had started a list of events—good and bad—that I would post here when I had the time to do it (since Anthony and I are off until January 2nd and spending lots of time together).

But like clockwork, 2010 decided to kick me in the ass just one more time today—in the form of a Certified Letter.

See, with only a few months left on our lease, we decided to go back to the dealer to buy out the remainder of the lease and finance it for a lower monthly payment. And from what we understood as we left the dealership, everything was under control and the Escape would be ours.

Then we started to get the denial letters from various financing companies which is quite the norm but eventually, somebody will approve you. This time, however, things seemed a little off-kilter because at a time when we should have gotten the paperwork and been approved, we hadn’t yet.

I made a few calls to the salesman who had helped us on all of our deals since 2000 and he assured me that he would personally take care of the details. He had never let us down before and I had my full trust in him once again this time. But something went awry.

The approval/Welcome Letter from our new finance company never arrived but instead, today we got a Letter of Decision to Rescind from the dealership. That simply means that for whatever reason, they have decided to not refinance our `08 Escape and they now want it back.

Fucked, fucked, fucked I tells ya. I should have stocked up on the Vaseline because man, I’m continually getting screwed in the end this year.

So, in addition to the financing thing not working out, a call to my salesman today revealed that he and the Finance Manager are—wait for it—no longer working at the dealership where I had bought the Escape. So while he can do some stuff to help us, the situation is pretty much out of his control and now we have to deal with who’s left at Ken Grody Ford in Buena Park, CA, where I was a loyal customer since 2000 and purchased my share of vehicles over the years. Thanks for screwing us this time and when I turn over the vehicle and keys (should that be the case unless something miraculous happens real soon), I can guarantee that I won’t ever be back for any reason, except maybe to perhaps piss on your shrubs every now and then.

From the moment I got the letter, I made several calls to the person listed on the letter and got no calls back after 4 hours. And because Hell hath no fury, Ann later called and demanded to speak with the manager, then handed the phone to me and within a few minutes I had him on the line. He was useless without his finance cronies there to help him.

So yeah, with only a few days left in this tumultuous year, it’s been decided by some otherworldly force that Ann and I need just a little bit more pressure placed upon us so that we may welcome 2011 with a handful of problems to contend with.

They can take the damn Escape. I really don’t care. It’s already cleaned out and everything. We’re just pissed off that it took so damn long to get any kind of response on the matter. But this gives us the chance to get into one of those crazy $0-down, $0-whatever, $199-a-month deals that many manufacturers are having now, which would be cheaper than what we’re paying on the Escape.

Do I have any good news? Yeah, sort of. We found a couple of used iMacs at the thrift shop the other day and bought one, then I went back today and bought the other one:

The low, low price of $17 for both, plus another 20% off with a coupon, was a little hard to resist. The one you see here is in Anthony’s room and will be good for him to play some games if he pleases. It can access the Internet but it’s not connected. Besides, IE 5.1 tends to crash quite a bit anyhow. So even if he screws this up, we only spent $7 on the thing.

So there’s the good news. Aside from that, 2010, I won’t be too sad to see you go.

But hey, isn’t that what I said about 2009?