Ah, the world. It’s full of bureaucracy without which I’m sure we couldn’t survive in our current iteration, but all too often when you’re a little human just trying to make things work and scrape by you fall afoul of it and don’t have the resources, time, knowledge and wherewithal to fight it.
I won’t get into this too much because it’s family stuff but in the 50 hours I got to be home betwixt getting back from New England and departing for Pittsburgh I’ve done lots of dishes, laundry, gone down to HMT for about 10 hours and found out I’m losing my car.
My trusty Saturn was never mine. It was my father’s. He gifted it to me in his will. His NEW will which invalidated the old will but due to a quirk of paperwork apparently isn’t completely legal – and so everything that was supposed to go easily to the rest of his family has been caught in an ugly legal limbo for the past 6 years as my mother makes a trip to the county courthouse once every other month or so only to be told that she did not file form x, y or z… and finally time is running out on certain things. Most recently everything’s been delayed because my mother paid to have the county send some required forms via certified mail, but they waited so long to mail them that the postage rates changed and the forms that should’ve been filed last August are still sitting, waiting to be mailed (apparently completely unbeknownst to anyone) for want of 48 cents.
And so the registration is up on my Saturn at the end of this month. But it’s technically my father’s. And the MVA has caught on to the fact that he’s dead and won’t let anyone renew the registration until the will paperwork is finally finalized, which can’t happen till after these forms are filed, and a court date is scheduled, and no-one contests the will, and a newspaper advertises publicly that this is going to happen so that anyone out there who might WANT to contest the will in some way can be made aware of the proceedings and perhaps contest – ALSO something that was done last August but apparently no-one has any record of that having been run…
And so my Saturn has to be off the street by July 1st and I don’t own a driveway. My mom does. It’ll have to Live at her place until it’s all resolved.
And so do I wait on the whim of the courts? Do I just suck it up and finally buy my own damned car? I haven’t purchased a car for myself since college – that VW served me well, and then I purchased my first Saturn from my father and was willed (theoretically) the second one upon his death since it was in better shape than the first.
Shouldn’t your dad’s death be the BIGGEST of the problems?
Whatever. It’ll get worked out. It was a lot to digest. I’ve got bandmates with cars and we’re often going to the same gigs. My girlfriend and I go almost everywhere together and SHE’S got a car. I’ve got time to work it out and in the meantime don’t have to pay car insurance for a couple of weeks… still, 48 cents postage derails my world? What… the…. FUCK.
