I’m sitting at home for once and writing. I haven’t written a post from my home computer in I can’t remember how long. I hope to get back to writing from home more frequently, but it’s just been easier to write while in between projects at work. Especially while home is so chaotic.
I didn’t get my car back this afternoon. I’m grumpy about that. My car is a beautiful blue Nissan Versa. I did a lot of research into the car before deciding on it and looked at all the options it could come with. And when we went to the dealership, the cars that they had on hand covered almost all of the things I wanted. Except for a sunroof. Call me picky or shallow or whatever, but we decided before going in that if they didn’t have a car with a sunroof, it was no deal. Justin’s car has a sunroof and I have loved that thing since the first time I got in. I hate convertible cars—can’t stand the fabric look on the frame—but I’m a sucker for the sunroof.
The dealership convinced us to get the car that we did by agreeing to work with a bodyshop in town to install a sunroof in my car. It was included in our deal from the beginning. We signed all the paperwork and left the car at the dealership so that they could take it to the bodyshop to have the sunroof installed.
Two weeks later, we went back to the dealership to get my car so we could use it to move. They hadn’t driven it one mile since we’d signed the paperwork. It turns out the bodyshop didn’t have the parts in that they needed to install the sunroof, so our car was just sitting there on the lot. We were upset by this because it took us a week to find out what the problem was, after they told us that we’d have the car back in a couple of days.
So we picked up the car (they didn’t even top of the tank of gas like they said they would in the paperwork) and used it to move to Bluffton, assured by the dealership that as soon as the parts came in, they would call us.
They called us two weeks later. I went back to the dealership, dropped off my Versa, got a loaner to cover my transportation needs, and was told that it’d be done in a few days. That was last Monday.
I was at the dealership on Saturday, helping the finance guy organize his desk, and the salesperson we’ve been dealing with told me that it would be ready this afternoon. At about 4:30 this afternoon, I called him to make sure it would be there. He called the shop and called me back to let me know that they were waiting on a piece of inventory that had been stalled in Florida because of the storm. It should be ready in the next couple of days. Now where have I heard that before?
Now that car that they’ve loaned me is super nice. It’s an Altima, with a sticker price on the window of about $33,000. It’s a very nice car. But I want my baby back.
I feel bad whining about it. I mean, it’s just a car. And that we’re able to have two cars, and buy me one so nice, really says a lot about our financial situation. We’re not exactly hurting. So complaining that my overly-expensive car is taking too long to get a totally inessential component added is about as bad as wandering around the streets if poverty-stricken Africa complaining that I don’t have enough freezer space for all my food.
I was reading a news article lately about a girl in Wisconsin who was arrested for overdue library books. Have you heard about this yet? She ignored several attempts at communication, both from the library and the local police, and was eventually led away from her home in handcuffs. She went to court, paid the fine, and admitted to the press that she still has the books and isn’t going to return them since she’s now paid for them.
I was talking with Justin about it afterwards. We were both appalled at this girl’s behavior. Her attitude the whole time was that she was completely within her rights. That, okay, she shouldn’t have ignored the call to court that was issued before her arrest warrant, but that she completely didn’t believe that they would arrest her for library books.
Now it bothers me that she thought that there would be no consequences to her actions. She assumed that she was untouchable, that it was a minor thing, that she could ignore the voices of the people both at the library and in the local police—that is until they showed up with a warrant. And while I understand that I would also consider the books now paid for, I would be kicking myself around the block for paying $170 for two books that I could have bought elsewhere for a fraction of that. As far as I could read from the article, though, she just seemed frustrated that they hadn’t left her alone.
Side note: She wasn’t the first person to be arrested for overdue library books. So was this man.
Anyway, the point of me ranting is that people, myself included, tend to think that we deserve more than we do. We paid for something so we deserve such and such. Or we’re a certain type of person, so we deserve such and such. Why do we as a people believe that this is the way it should be? And it frustrates me that I cannot claim to be any different.