First things first - we moved. It's fabulous. Our pictures are starting to go onto the walls, our paint colours are on the same walls, I can sit and have a beer on my own sofa. Which I am doing right now. Ohhhhhh yes.
However, as Bridget Jones says: it is a truth universally acknowledged that when one part of your life finally starts to come together, another falls spectacularly apart. The item leading the charge on the falling apart section was Chrissie, the hubby's ten-year-old long-suffering Chrysler Sebring. On Saturday morning, the start of what was supposed to be a nice relaxing weekend off after 12 days in a row busting my ass at both my employers, I got a call from my boy saying he had a flat tyre on the side of I-4.
At which point I thought, "I am so glad I paid for a AAA membership."
About 90 minutes later, I got another call from my boy. Saying the reason the tyre was flat was because the rear brake calipers had seized partially shut. No, I don't know what a caliper is either, but essentially it meant the boy had been driving with his brakes partially on for several weeks.
At which point I thought, and said, "fuck".
For the uninitiated, ten-year-old Chryslers with 160000 miles on them aren't worth very much. Chrissie's prognosis was grim, and when we were given the estimate - only $50 less than the car was worth - her death warrant was signed and sealed.
Whilst this is no doubt bad news, you may be wondering how this falls into the 'life falling spectacularly apart' category. If you are, you have never tried to live in Orlando, Florida without a car. One between two, when you have opposite schedules and different days off, isn't enough.
And you have certainly never tried to buy one when supporting two people on half the money you used to make. This was around the time I reached for the emergency gin.
Plan B was to try and get finance to buy a used car that would actually last longer than five seconds. This plan lasted 24 hours before being shot down by my lack of credit history and a total arsehole in Central Florida Toyota, who wouldn't even show us any cars until we'd agreed to the terms of the seven-year, 16% APR loan he was offering us. Don't go to Central Florida Toyota if you want anything even vaguely resembling customer service. I couldn't face the humiliation of being told the same thing anywhere else.
More emergency gin.
There have been several days of emergency gin, and tears. It is times like this that home seems impossibly far away and this place seems as alien and as unwelcoming as if I was on Mars. And for the first time since I got here, I said, without any caveats or mitigation, "I want to go home". Oh how I miss home.
My lovely Mr. Jess, fortunately, came up with a Plan P. P for Pepe.
In case you didn't know, all scooters must be called Pepe.
It's not ideal, but has some serious advantages. Like less tax, $120 less a month on insurance, and it gets - wait for it - 120mpg!!!! Plus we got one new for less than a bumper on the car we almost bought. Plus I get to wear a pink helmet. We don't have a choice right now, so we might as well have a giggle.
Life is certainly taking twists and turns that I can't keep up with at the moment. But I always kind of wanted a scooter.
