Well, I do believe it’s safe to say that there will be no frivolous purchases for me in the near future. Not like I was planning anything so audacious as purchasing a rim tablet or something, but the simple truth is that my future finances are complete and utter mystery.

But how can this be, when I’ve been working so hard to get all my credit cards paid off and repairing my credit? I’ve paid off Bank of America and I’m one payment away from finishing Capital One, shouldn’t I be happy? Should my financial future be, if not secure yet, at least looking up?

Well, as fate would have it, the answer is no. Let me tell you how my week turned out and you’ll see what I mean.

So first off, Pyro is acting up again and is in serious need of repairs. And the truth of it is that I don’t even know what is wrong with the car anymore. There’s a short somewhere that causes the car to register a door(s) as ajar. Now, unfortunately, when a door is ajar the dome light in a Dodge Neon pops on and stays on for a long time before turning off, or until the door in question is closed properly. All of the doors can be closed properly, but Pyro still registers one of them as ajar. Why not just turn off the dome light, you ask? Because you can’t. I don’t know if the newer Neons are different, but the older ones (like mine) don’t have a switch on the dome light. You know the one where you can have the light turn on when a door opens, or set it to not turn on at all? Yeah, that’s not there at all. So if a door opens (or is ajar) the dome light will always come on.

I’ve had this problem before with Pyro, but it got fixed. Now it’s happening again. Turn the car off, get out, shut the door right, it’ll still read as “ajar” and the dome light will stay on a good ten-plus minutes before just turning off eventually. Real pain in the ass. It also pops on and off while I’m driving at random too. Not cool at night since you can get a ticket for driving with your dome light on. Not to mention the fact that the extra time it stays on has to wear on the battery. And eventually, as the problem progresses, it just may never turn off completely. That’s been going on for about a week now, and I had planned to get it fixed here soon. But, I covered the entirety of the Verizon bill that my Mom and I split because, because we have a plan together, since she’s been having a hard time getting clients to pay right now. There were overage fees (she went over the minutes, not me!) so the bill was more expensive. Completely blew my budget out of wack. Plus I had just gotten two tires replaced that badly needed it. So I’m broke right now and most of my next paycheck is going to go to the final Capital One payment.

And since we had a holiday (Labor Day) and I was out sick on one day, that’s two days of pay I lost to boot. Meaning my next paycheck is going to be a bit on the short side. Just gets better and better, right?

Then on Friday my car wouldn’t start in the morning, my Mom had to come and give Pyro a jump. I drove to work just fine, and surprise surprise, the short seemed to have sorted itself out as well. Then, after I got out of work on Friday I went to my car to discover it wouldn’t start again. I thought maybe the battery didn’t hold the charge after all and I needed a new one. Because of where my battery is placed under the hood, and where my Mom’s is, we had a hard time trying to hook Pyro up for a jump the second time. I was trying to put the car in neutral so that we could push it out of the parking space for better access, when I managed to hit ignition just right and Pyro roared to life.

Ended up driving home just fine, and on Saturday morning when I tried to start Pyro again to go to work he wouldn’t start. I messed around a bit trying to repeat what I did on Friday and he started just fine. I went to work, stopped off to buy a breakfast burrito, then went and donated plasma before coming home. And each time Pyro started just fine – so long as I repeated the little trick. Is it my starter, the ignition, safety switch, or something else that isn’t working now? I have no fucking clue. And let’s not forget the other stuff that is wrong with Pyro either.

Despite not having the money for it at all, I may just have to try and buy a new car. Even if it means taking out a loan. But wait, that might not be a good idea either because Saturday I received a summons – I’ve been served.

Discover apparently handed my account over to a collection agency and they served me. Now here’s the real kicker, the papers I was handed on Saturday don’t say when there is a hearing or when I need to make an appearance either. It does mention that there is a “form attached” that I need to respond to. But there is no form. And the paperwork is all dated back in August to boot. August 12th and the 24th to be exact. I was given this on the 17th of September. Very timely isn’t it? Oh, but it gets better. I just got a letter in the mail the other day (Wednesday I believe) from said collection agency offering a settlement deal and according to their letter I have until September 28th to respond. The letter states it was sent out on the 2nd of September too, by the way. That means that after they had already set the court proceedings in motion they were offered me this settlement. Now that, that right there is completely and utterly despicable.

So on Monday I’m going to the court house after I get out of work to try and get some answers and figure out what my next step should be. Do I even bother with this settlement offer if I’m already being taken to court?