So, this happened.
      When he moved back to PA in search of greener pastures (work-related, not life related, his “personal” pastures are plenty green I assure you), he had no vehicle of his own. During those (long!) months we were apart, he was back here in PA rocking a new job at NFI and I was still in WA, waiting for us to be able to afford to move me back there with him.
      Well, as it happened, his brother had a car (an old Saab) that he didn’t drive because they’d upgraded. He lent it to Mark so he could get back and forth to work. Then, when the registration was up (and it would NEVER pass inspection), they went to a local Bad-Credit-No-Credit-Any-Thing-Goes dealership and Jason signed it over as a trade-in so Mark could buy the Impala.
      Fast-forward three years and we had about eleven months left to pay on the ol’ Chevy (Not so old – it is a 2005) and we really liked her… but.
      But.
      She is a gas hog. Tops out between 19 and 21 mpg, depending on how much of it is highway.
      And the A/C was out. And the horn stopped. And the inspection was due by 7/31 and so on.
      So we decided, with Mark’s new job requiring a pretty hefty commute, we would look around and try our luck at getting a more economical model.
      Used, of course.
      A week or so before, we’d gotten an ad in the mail from a Kia dealership which promised that it could get us lower payments, lower interest, and out of the old car into a better one.
      Worth a shot, right? Even with our bad credit, we figured – they wouldn’t have sent us that offer if it was totally outside the realm of possibility.
      So we checked out their used inventory online and found a couple of worthwhile contenders. Mark has long dreamed of driving a VW Jetta (preferably Diesel, though this one wasn’t), and they had one – a silver 2007. Plus, he found two used Kia Souls (2010 with a sun roof and 2012, without) that looked do-able.
      First thing we learned, upon walking in, was that the Jetta sold the previous night. Nuts!
      Second thing we learned was that the sun roof Soul was gone.
      Third thing we learned was that the “teensy” clerical error that we had been told not to worry about until we were on our last payment was actually a HUGE snafu (illegal as heck, thankyouverymuchMrBuyHerePayHereman).
      After reviewing our numbers and discussing what we were really looking for, it turned out that our best bet was really… a new one.
      WHAAAA?
      Yeah. So when Mark & I drove off that lot that night, we left happily ensconced in a gorgeous sunny yellow 2014 Kia Soul.
      (yes, the boxy “toaster”-looking one)
      It is astounding to me how much our credit has improved in the past three years.
      When we tried to rent a place a few years before moving back to PA – we’re talking sub-500 numbers. Like, as bad as you can get without having murder on the rap sheet. Sincerely – awful.
      But now we’re doing surprisingly well and though we’re not (either of us) up to “good”, at least one of us got “fair” and that is BAD ASS!
      Maybe we’ll actually be able to buy a house one of these days.
      Anyway – in the end, our payments are the same as we were paying on the Impala (with less than half the interest rate) but we’re locked in for a helluva lot more than 11 more payments. *sob* We’ve got a pretty sweet warranty for the next 10 years/120,000 miles and roadside assistance, a brand new car that had exactly 6 miles on it when we pulled away, and while it isn’t exactly what we thought we wanted, sometimes you gotta leap on the signs in front of you.
      I prefer to think of everything as part of the plan. That grand design.
      And yeah, it sucks that UPS didn’t work out. But maybe it was meant to lead us to Cardinal, which Mark seems really excited about, and that commute lead us trading in the gas-guzzler, which lead to us finding out that we were really in a potentially dangerous & apparently illegal position.
      Now that is behind us (Thanks for coming down to sign, Jason!) and we’re looking forward to a bright new future. I mean, check out that paint job! You can’t be grumpy when you’re looking at all that sunshine!

Note: Images are “Big News” by Me and PaintShopPro & Mark+Josie+Soul by Joe Schell