I don't know how to write this section without looking like a complete idiot. Each week, each month, it seemed to make sense, but when you step back and look at the whole picture you just shake your head.
I was unemployed for most of last year, and I am still underemployed, barely making ends meet; and yet we have spent $46,000 on cars. I'm not even sure where the money came from. A good chunk of it is financed of course, but the rest came from our savings account, which is now sadly depleted. This was suppose to be my buffer against further unemployment. If I don't find a good job soon, we are all at risk. How did this happen?
It started back in January. Remember my premise - John must succeed at something, and soon, or he could travel down a very bad path. After 11 years of sleepless nights and tears and indescribable sacrifice, I can still picture John in jail, or in an institution, or under the ground. I am of course tragically underestimating his resilience and his intelligence, which I have written about before. He doesn't have to succeed this year or next; he'll bounce back. But that's not the way it seems when you're in the midst of it. After all, my brother committed suicide at age 16, and he didn't have nearly as many issues as John. So this is the backdrop that sets the stage.
Other than his autoshop class, school has little to offer. And after three years, autoshop has pretty well run its course. So school is an ongoing source of frustration for him and for us, with little to be gained. This will never be his venue for success. So that leaves work.
In January he came home all excited about a job offer, and how much money he was going to make, and how great it would be; but he needs a car. "Don't worry, I'll make the car payments as soon as I get my job rolling." I must admit, his excitement was contagious. We bought a used Cadillac "as is" for $5,400. That's really all we could afford. Unfortunately we had to sink another $2,000 into it within the first three weeks to keep it running. After that it was in good shape, and we were on our way, right? Wrong.
I don't know if I should even admit to the Mickey Shorr's fiasco. Like everything else, it begins and ends with John's frantic optimism. "I have to have a gps for my job. I'm going to be driving people all over town, and I can't afford to get lost." I pointed out that a portable gps unit is only $100, but that wasn't good enough. "It has to be a luxury car. They won't hire me unless the car qualifies as safe and luxurious. It's sort of like a limo service. So I have to have an in-dash navigation system with radio and cd and dvd etc. Don't worry though. I'll be making $35 an hour, and I can pay you back in no time." I was a bit stunned by the prospect. Thanks to the Michigan recession, I'm not making that much money per hour, even with two masters degrees. Could my disfunctional son possibly make more than I, without so much as a high school diploma? I hope so! But remember, if something sounds too good to be true, it is. We get sucked in again, and pretty soon we have spent $1,700 on after market equipment. But wait, there's more. Somehow they damaged the air-bag system when they installed the radio, and naturally they won't admit to that, so we had to spend another $600 to get that fixed. "They won't hire me if the car has an air-bag light on." Now, finally, the car runs beautifully, and it has everything John needs for his job. We should be good to go, right? Wrong.
john is never happy with anything for very long. The grass is always greener, always lush and beautiful and pastoral, on the other side of the dealership. By the end of February he wanted to trade his car in for something else, and his quick subconscious came up with a million desperate reasons why we just had to do it. "My Cadillac gets crap gas mileage. And it requires premium fuel. I'm going to be driving all over town for my job; we really need a more economical car." Well that makes sense, I suppose, except, "Why didn't you think of that before we bought the damn thing?! Why didn't you think of that before we spent $2,000 on after market crap?!" He has already formulated an answer to the second question. "They're giving us credit for that equipment, a great deal on a trade-in. We'll be getting all that money back." Bull shit! I often refer to this kind of thinking as "sunshine". Like blowing sunshine up your skirt, or wherever you may choose to put it. The dealer is probably giving us an extra $300 for that equipment, certainly not $2,000. But John believes the sunshine - he believes anything that will further his goals. He talks about this trade-in day and night, and wears us down like sand paper. Finally we say yes, thus giving a couple grand to the dealer for the privilege of the exchange, plus another grand to the state in taxes and fees. I call this thrashing, and my party's just beginning.
We got, in exchange, a Chrysler 300M, and it lasted about three hours before the transmission blew. fluid pooling on the road, smoke in the air, and a tow truck on its way. A complete melt down. The dealer fixed it, whereupon it lasted about five hours before it blew again in exactly the same fashion. Lordy! To his credit, Ken, at "Cars For You", made every effort to rectify the situation. He gave us a Saturn Vue, which is one of the nicest used cars you'll ever see. However, we went down a tortuous path to arrive at that conclusion. Having experienced a complete transmission failure, John was now paranoid. "The transmission doesn't feel right. It skips. There's something wrong with it." Again, he talked about this day and night in a near panic. "I'm not going to drive it. I just don't feel safe. I guess I can't take that job. But you don't seem to care, do you?" We took the car to a local mechanic, and he put it on his machine, and yes, the transmission seemed to jump and skip. There was something wrong with it. Needless to say this put all of us in a bad mood. We went back to Ken and demanded our money back, and he wisely refused. "We drove that car for a month; it's fine." In the heat of the moment we threatened to sue, and I am completely embarrassed about this in retrospect. We finally did what we should have done in the first place - we took the car to a transmission shop. They summarized the situation as follows. "It's a Saturn, their transmission is like no other. It looks like it is malfunctioning if you put it on a standard diagnostic machine; but it's fine." they could have charged us, through our warranty company, $3,000 to put in a new transmission, and I wouldn't have known the difference. Instead they charged us nothing and sent us on our way. Yes, there are honest mechanics out there. And honest used car dealers (thank you Ken for this car). So the Saturn is fully functional, and John is ready to go. But wait a minute - what happened to the "luxury" requirement? A Saturn is surely not a luxury car. Well John has given up on that job, and has moved on to another one. He is going to be a porter for a dealership, and he doesn't need a luxury car for that. "This job pays $25 an hour, and that's still pretty good." Damn good, I'd say. So we're ready to go, right? Wrong.
Within a couple weeks he is not happy with the Saturn. I don't even remember why now - that was so many cars ago. We relented, only because Beth was in love with the car. "It's a great car, I'd love to drive it." Do you have a seriously disabled child along side other children who don't require a lot of attention? Do you know what it's like to virtually ignore your daughter, simply because she is no trouble at all? She does what she is told, and she is on the honor roll at school. "Nice job." as I give her a quick kiss. "Carry on. I have to go spend all of my time and money on John." This girl, who asks almost nothing of us, ever, has quietly wished for a car of her own for over a year. I decided that enough is enough. If anyone deserves a car, it's Beth. We buy a ten year old Aurora for John, and give Beth the Saturn.
Beth is thrilled, and drives all around town, happily ignoring the minor imperfections in the car that would drive John crazy. Indeed, I am watching her blossom socially and emotionally. And the friends she brings home are just the nicest people. This almost makes the entire car saga worthwhile. Almost - let's hold off on that judgment until you hear the whole story.
The Aurora has problems from day one. Spark plugs and fluids, just like the Cadillac, plus a persistent oil leak which is estimated to cost $1,500 to fix. Here we go again. "I don't feel safe driving that car. I guess I can't take that job. But you don't seem to care, do you?" I decided to dump this car and buy a newer vehicle, provided I can finance it 100%, with no money down. You just can't save money buying an older car. It just doesn't work. So we buy a 2 year old trailblazer. It's a nice car. But you guessed it, within a couple weeks John is not happy with it. "The transmission skips. Don't you feel it?" Wendy drives it, and I sit in the passenger seat, and no, we don't feel a thing. It doesn't matter though, because the prince has ruled.
We go back to the dealership and trade it in for an older, but much less expensive Cadillac. More thrashing, more money down the drain. Now we have a nice car with no problems, at least for a week. Then there are $2,000 worth of problems to fix. We fix these, and another $2,000 worth of problems crop up. We report these to the dealer, and he takes it back, giving us almost what we paid, if we are willing to take another car in exchange.
The seventh and final car is a Pontiac Grand Prix, and it is only 4 years old. It's been a week, and so far there is nothing wrong with the car. We've changed some fluids, and one tire; that's it. But time will tel.
Throughout these six months John has made less than $200 at work. No success for him, and no financial help for us. apparently these "great jobs" were all sunshine. He has no job, and no job prospect, that would justify buying a car. I am confident that John was not lying to us, though I fear others may have lied to him, or at least exaggerated wildly. He really believed he was going to land these great jobs, one after another after another, and make a lot of money, and pay us back. His optimism has kept him alive all these years, through abuse and disruptions and an unending string of failures; but it is so far away from reality that it can send him, and us, careening down a completely irrational path. We may as well mortgage our house and spend $50,000 on lotto tickets. "We're sure to win."
I hope 7 is the magic number, because I can assure you, this is the last car! If it breaks, we will simply park it, and John will have no car. As for his Job, I can't wait around forever for Godot while my life savings evaporate into thin air. I am done - I have to be done.