09/3/03’s illustrious band:

The Installment Plan

Brought to you by Fate, apparently.

You’re familiar with the phrase “paying for your mistakes”? I’m experiencing this in a literal and ongoing fashion: I’m still suffering financial penalties for my unfortunate affiliation with the Jackass-American community, by which I mean my marriage to El Pendejo. The marriage may have ended years ago, but the hassles have not.

To make a long, ugly story shorter and uglier, the state government, in its infinite wisdom, is still holding me responsible for El Pendejo’s parking tickets, or at least several that he racked up in January. Why? Because the state thinks I still owned his pickup at that time (we bought it while married). Why? Because although we had sold it to his parents, they had neglected to get the title properly transferred. Why? Because THEY’RE EVIL JACKASSES. (Visit the BND archives and scroll down to the April 23 entry, The Green Albatross, for complete, gory details.)

After much negotiation with Los Pendejos Parentals last April (which followed negotiations that took place the year before), the pickup title finally got transferred. I naively thought they’d do the responsible thing and take care of the unpaid parking tickets as well. But no. I got another collection notice from the state last week demanding that I pay “my” fines immediately or they’d start withholding my wages.

Well, I give up. They’ve gotten the better of me. The jackasses have won and I publicly admit defeat. I have no more energy left to fight the good fight. I sent the state a check yesterday to get the matter closed. Sure, I forwarded copies of the collection notice and my check (with the bank routing numbers concealed; I’m not a complete idiot) to the Pendejos, along with yet another request that they reimburse me. But who am I kidding? I’ve been a good girl and played by the rules, and I’m old enough to know by now that that will not net me diddly squat.

So I give up. I cannot change the jackass situation, only my reaction to it. We have a saying in T’ai Chi: Invest in loss. This means that one should view each loss, each setback, as a learning opportunity. Well, I’m investing, all right. I’m investing on the installment plan. Every time I’m sure I’ve learned the “no more jackasses” lesson, it keeps coming back to kick me in the butt, as jackasses are wont to do.

Clearly, then, the universe has another lesson in mind for me to learn from this, but I sure can’t figure out what it is. Can you? Please let me know. I can use all the help I can get.

E-mail the Media Sensation: jugglernaut@hotmail.com

Visit the BND archives at http://jugglernaut.blogspot.com.