f8hasit

"I tried to stop it, but I was trapped. The car was out of control. No driver, the passenger useless for help, me trapped in the back and there were people in the path of the car..."

The coffee girls in unison said, "Do you feel out of control?" I'm thinking, "...well, yeah, maybe a little. But what's new. Welcome to my world..."

When I got home, I looked up the symbols from my dream. The car? It represents your personal space, spiritual direction and motivation. To be in a car alerts us to our own motivation. To dream that you are in a car crash, indicates that your beliefs, lifestyle, or goals are clashing with another's. It may also represent a shocking situation or painful experience. Being a passenger in the car represents handing over responsibility for our lives to someone else. Dreaming of brakes shows the ability to be in control of a situation, while crashing a vehicle suggests fear of failure in life.

To see a truck in your dream, suggests that you are overworked. You are taking on too many tasks and are weighed down by all the responsibilities. To see a brick in your dream, represents your individual ideas and thoughts. Experience and/or heartbreak may have hardened you. To see your ex-husband/wife in your dream, indicates that you are finding yourself in a situation that you do not want to be in. It suggests that you are experiencing a similar relationship or situation which makes you feel unhappy and uncomfortable. And to see children in your dream, signify an aspect of yourself and your childlike qualities. You may be retreating back to a childlike state where you are longing for the past and the chance to satisfy repressed desires and unfulfilled hopes. Perhaps there is something that you need to see grow and nurtured. To save a child, signifies your attempts to save a part of yourself from being destroyed.

Wow. But c'mon.

All of these things could be true, to an extent. Which now freaks me out a little. My mind speaking to me whilst I slept. Thanks be to my posse for filling me in what I didn't acknowledge before they enlightened me. Couldn't we have one image per dream? My brain didn't have to load them all into one, did it? Too bad it couldn't have used my reoccurring dream of Johnny Depp, baby, to overload with images. Why not choose that one? That one was goooooood. Oh no, it had to be the one that would basically tell me when I looked it up that my life (as per my brain) was in shambles.

Have you ever watched that program 'Solitary'? I don't watch it on a regular basis, but the other night I was flipping through my 1000 or so channels looking for something decent to watch for a few moments of down time.

I'm sure everyone knows how mother bears will do most anything to protect their cubs.

The sun has finally come out!
Well, it did. For a little while.

It's gone again. Replaced once again by this dreary gray.

Yesterday was so bright that I almost felt as if I should have had my sunglasses on while sitting in my office at home. It was the first time in several days that the big ball of yellow-orange orb called the sun came into view.

We, here in Cleveland, have been experiencing the January Gray.

That's my term for it. January Gray.

It's those days that run together into night into day again without so much notice. The sky, the ground, the air, even the lake is all the same color. Gray.

It's not the wonderful, peaceful, soft dove gray of one of my much loved cushy, cashmere sweaters, but that edgy gray that makes you think of hard, cold metal. It's dismal. It's dreary. It's downright crap.

It's difficult on days like these, even for an optimist like me, to feel perky. Or alive. Weather like this just makes me want to stay in bed. I don't feel like working out, getting dressed or leaving the house. I feel lethargic.

This past week has been like that.

When the weather takes this turn you can understand how people must feel with seasonal affective disorders. I had a friend years ago whose brother suffered from SAD. They had a large light panel in their living room that he would sit in front of daily. It imitated natural sunlight. I thought it odd at the time, but I get it now. I wish I still knew her, I need a little dosage from that sun panel.

Winter doesn't bother me. I actually quite enjoy it. When others are complaining about the cold and snow, I don't chime in. I love the cold that allows me to bundle up in my beloved turtlenecks, mittens and coats. I love putting on boots and hearing the crunch of fresh snow underfoot. I love when it's so cold you can hear the crackle of the tree branches straining under the weight of ice and snow. The chatter of icicles hanging from houses.

I love that about winter.

But these past days haven't been like that. It's not beautiful. It's not cheery. It's just cold. And dark. And gray.

What is left of our gorgeous white snow has been replaced dirty piles of ice particles. The precipitation of this winter is not of snow, but rain. It's not the rain of spring that feels fresh and clean. This is that cold rain that chills you to the bone. Not warm enough to melt everything, it leaves behind traces of what was. Piles of icy muck at the edges of driveways. Debris on the tree lawns that had been hidden is now exposed, frozen to the ground.

We've had some peculiar weather for this time of year. Quite unusual, really. Three days ago we experienced a heavy fog that lasted for days. Days. It was odd and eerie, right out of a Stephen King novel. I had taken the dogs down to the beach for a run, but once off the leash...I could hear them, but couldn't see them. It spooked me. Everything was the same color. I started to get a sense of vertigo. It was all I could do to not high tail it immediately for my car. I suppose having recently watched the movie "The Fog" made me even jumpier in this cloud. I kept waiting for some 'thing' to get me. I didn't like the feeling at all. It really creeped me out.

Plus it gave me really bad hair.

I say, "Either warm up, and stay that way, or get cold again and snow, damnit!" This in between stuff is leaving me in a foul mood. Snappy. Short.

I don't like it. Not one bit.

But yesterday morning was different. It even sounded different. There was no rain on the skylights, but the beat of a lone woodpecker in the distance. I opened my eyes and saw the faint orange glow on the horizon.

Could it be? Is that the sun? Maybe January Gray has moved on to another temporary home.

Alas, it was just a tease. A mere 5 hours of sunshine to remind me what I'm missing. This morning when I awoke I looked up to see that once again it was raining. The drops were clinging to the skylight in the early morning light. The gray had returned. January Gray. Doppler radar informs me that it's going to continue to rain with the temperatures reaching 50 by Sunday. Ugh.

Looking out my window I see the remains of the snowman next door. His head has rolled off and fallen to the ground. His body is tilting at a severe angle, his scarf frozen to the grass beside him. He obviously doesn't much like this weather either. He's not as perky as he was a week ago.

I feel like him today. We can commiserate, he and I.
I cleared my schedule. I'm not leaving the house.
I'm grabbing my laptop and heading back to bed. No real need to go out. No work that can't be done another time. I'm staying in.

It's just too yucky. Even for an optimist like me.

I'll deal with everything...another day. Just not today.
Perhaps when the sun is out once again?

One can only hope...
:-)

Chanz over at Life, Through my eyes tagged me with this great, and great looking award! Go check out her stories...it's a good read.

Sometimes what I say isn't quite what I mean.

I had a baby.

I got ripped off at Christmas.

Well, not me exactly. But my friend did. And I feel somewhat responsible.

You see, I'm a trusting soul. I'd never scam anyone. I do 'what is right' all the time. So I figure everyone else to do the same.

Naive, I guess. But I'd like to think that the world is the way that I view it, not the way it actually is.

Alas...
So this is what happened.

You know the stereotype that Used Car Salesmen have.

Shady. Underhanded. Untrustworthy. Sleazy.
All of those wonderful adjectives. And more.

I now think of Used Car Salesmen with other more eloquent descriptors in front of the adjectives.

For example: F**king Shady. F**king Underhanded. F**king Untrustworthy. F**king Sleazy.

You get the point.

My friend wanted to buy a new car. New to him, at least. I suggested a car that I'd owned in the past which I loved and wished I hadn't gotten rid of. A Land Rover Discovery. It would be perfect for him. And now since they no longer make that body style, they are more affordable than they were when I plunked down 45 grand.

I did some searching for them, and found some for sale on eBay.

Now I've sold and bought many things on eBay. Cars included, so I didn't have the bad experience stories that some have. This car seemed perfect. And it was offered just 10 miles away, so I could go take a 'look see' in person.

Clean. Very low mileage. Black on black. It seemed an unbelievable deal.

Key in the ignition it started right up. Beautiful. The Discovery may not leave the best of carbon footprints on the environment, but there is something to be said for the feeling you get with all that horsepower at your command. I took it out for a spin. Nice. Very nice. It brought back all those fond memories of driving my own years ago.

I urged my friend to buy it.

He placed a deposit on it so no one could swoop it out from under us online while he squared away financing. One day later, he was signing papers and the car was his.

It's exciting buying a new car...or a used car. It's the nicest car he'd ever owned thus far and was pleased with the purchase. We were 'high five-ing' ourselves in finding the perfect car. And at at good deal to boot.

That is until 12 miles down the road. Twelve whole blissful miles.

That's when the 'Check Engine Light' came on.

And the proverbial wheels fell off this stellar, seamless used car transaction.

Land Rovers, from my experience, have a few basic maintenance issues. The biggie is that the gaskets need resealing. Usually this happens around the 75,000 to 100,000 mile range. This vehicle being on the low mileage end, I wouldn't have figured this would be an issue for many, many years. And because of the engine design, some of the maintenance can be expensive due labor costs.

To have a Engine Reseal done is around $3500. At a dealer it'll run you $5000.

Guess what?

It needed to be done.
Now.

In Ohio you have to get an eCheck on your car every year. If it doesn't pass emissions, no tickie. No taggie. They won't even run your car on the machine if there is a dashboard light on.

I took it up to the local Auto Parts store to run the codes to get a preliminary idea as to what might be causing the damned light to illuminate. They found 14 codes.
Fourteen!

A few basic ones; filters, air flow, spark plug misfires in #2, #4 and #5. But there were some that are dealer codes that only a Land Rover specialist has access to.

I called the people we bought the car from. AutosDirectOnline. Drew Lofgren, the salesman, said it was probably a maintenance issue. I agreed that that is a possibility, but pointed out that this obviously was a problem BEFORE we signed for the car...

"Give me the codes." he quickly chimed in, "I'll have my mechanic find out what's wrong."

"I'll e-mail them to you right now." Which I did.

"Let me get back to you after the weekend. We'll get this squared away." he replied.

I thought, "Okay. That's cool. He seemed sincere. I'll get this problem solved in a couple of days. He's a good guy. He's not going to screw us over. Perhaps he didn't know. He'll do the right thing..."

The long and short of it. He never did call me back. When I would follow up, he would take my calls at first, but then stopped responding to any communication. Each and every time he would say, "It's seems a maintenance issue." He said that as if I'd just put 1,000 miles on it and the oil needed to be changed. It was like his mantra. Maintenance issue. Maintenance issue. Maintenance issue.

They must teach that in sleazy used car salesmen school. Learn it. Live it. Love it. It's the catchall phrase to obliterate your responsibility to be a productive, caring human in society.

During his last conversation with me, he pointed out that my friend had signed a paper stating in small, fine print that he accepted the car in an "As Is" condition. That the dealer no longer has any responsibility for the vehicle.

Shady. Underhanded. Untrustworthy. Sleazy.

I then took the Disco to Isaias Cornejo.
He owns and runs Westend Rover +Jag. I found him through another mechanic friend whom I trust, but wouldn't work on a Land Rover.

I love this guy.
I wish I'd had known him prior to our buying the Disco.

Smart, knowledgeable, fair. He took the time to completely go over the car. He said by no uncertain terms that he knew the place we bought the car had cleared the codes. On purpose.

AutosDirectOnline cleared the codes so no one would know that they were selling a car with problems.

To trusting, unsuspecting people like myself.
Taking advantage of my 'Golden Rule' philosophy.

F**king Shady. F**king Untrustworthy. F**king Underhanded. F**king Sleazy.

Never, ever buy a vehicle from AutosDirectOnline.
I don't care how nice the vehicle is. Or looks. Just don't do it.

What I thought was a clean, easy transaction changing my initial perception of the 'Used Car Salesmen' directly back to all that I now know to really expect. And more.

Now, I'm sure that there ARE good sales people out there with integrity that sell cars. I'm not talking about you. You keep doing what you are doing to change the image. I commend you. I only wish I had been dealing with you and not them...

I'm currently spearheading a campaign against this company. I've called the local news stations that love to investigate these types of 'crimes'.

I absolutely hate that I got ripped off. And tricked. I thought I was smarter than that.
But it is still a nice car. Beautiful really.

And just think, it'll be even nicer once we can actually drive it.

Bah.
:-)




FOOTNOTE: If YOU have had a bad experience with Autos Direct Online, please contact me directly. I'd love to add your story to ours to help keep others from being ripped off by this company.