Public Service Announcement...

It seems that when you rent a car from Avis, you have to pay extra to get roadside service in case their car...a car you do not own but are already paying to use...breaks down. If you don't, they will charge you. Doesn't matter if it's not your fault. That you did everything right. That the car just stopped on its own. You get charged for them to send someone out to handle it.

That's what my day was taken up with. Fighting with Avis because they wanted to charge me $146.00 for them to take care of one of their cars breaking down. They've agreed to waive the cost, but when I mentioned I already had AAA and would have used them, instead, had I known this about them...the response was, "Well, now you know."

I also found out my Civic won't be ready till after Thanksgiving weekend...if then. And the cost to rebuild the brake system is nearly $6000. My choices are very simple -- I get the car fixed, or I junk it and do without. Because I cannot afford to buy another one. At least they'll let me use one of their loaners while it stays in the shop.

All of this snowballed into me freaking out over how deep in debt I am, and what charges I'll have coming up. Taxes. Maybe changing health insurance companies. The cost of putting APoS out in paperback. So all I did that could be considered constructive is work up my expenses for the last two jobs, which I'll take into the office tomorrow, after I get the loaner.

I have to; my printer is out of ink and I have no clean paper. Another $50-60 out the door.

How the fuck did writers manage in the face of the world's chaos? I'm no Dickens, Twain, Tolstoy or Stephen King, making a living off my words. How do you handle it when shit just keeps coming at you?

Good thing I've got a certain stubbornness in me that won't stop kicking me down the road instead of leaving me in the gutter.