Melissa Charles author

To be honest, the entire month of July had me wanting to pull a blanket up over my head and hide under my desk for days at a time.

The first issue is our Bessie. Allow me to reassure folks that Bessie is not a person or pet. Bessie is our well loved van.

I know, I know, naming a vehicle is weird, but I’ve never hidden the fact that ‘normal’ doesn’t apply in this household.

Bessie is a black mini van that saw the husband and a kid from the West coast of Canada to the East coast, while the rest of the Minions and I flew in a couple of weeks later. She’s been a mostly faithful, hardworking vehicle, ferrying everyone around for the last decade or so.

I say ‘mostly faithful’ because poor Bessie had started a long, slow, expensive slide toward the Great Junkyard. Costs weren’t just in repair bills, although those were hundreds at a time, and cumulative, since it seemed every other month or two there was something new that needed to be addressed.

The breaking point was when the sliding doors decided closing was no longer something they were interested in doing. Well, they’d close, but didn’t want to stay that way.

Repairs would be in the thousands.

It was time to say goodbye to Bessie.

Not to be outdone, our washer died the same day. Our dryer had also begun its decent into the long goodbye, taking all day to dry a single load of wash.

And yes, of course Mercury was in the microwave at the time. Because that’s the way life goes.

Now, I’m used to things going a certain basic way. Figure out which vehicle we want and which car lot has it. (I’m an author, research is my jam) We test drive, make our decision, do the paperwork, and drive off in a new vehicle the same day. No fuss, no muss, done.

We test drove two, decided on one, sat down with the sales guy.

And he was the embodiment of all bad stereotypes that plague used car salesmen. It wasn’t until we were negotiating price and his boss came in that the man even asked my name.

After FOUR HOURS, we were told a deal wouldn’t be completed that day.

What?!

Long story short, after being jerked around for several days, our deposit was refunded, I made a phone call about a vehicle we’d seen online, and it was delivered to our house within 48 hours.

The day the vehicle was delivered, we hopped in and drove to a local appliance place that had a washer and dryer set that would work for our family. Buying local didn’t work out for the vehicle, but surely a washer and dryer wouldn’t be a problem, right?

And that, my friends, is where the second round of chaos began.