Night Of The Repo Man

He took my car and my pride, and all I can do is handle it.

The day I’ve been fearing for a year has come. My car was repossessed in the middle of the night.

It began last September, in the Sam’s Club in Morgantown, West Virginia. I quit my job in a restaurant that was just barely paying my bills, and taken on a direct sales job that promised good money. While on my second trip in the business, I realized that I made only $800 in a month, and that I was better off at that job I had grown to hate so much.

I had blasted a hole in my finances, and I still struggle in that pit every day. The first fear that crossed my mind was that the car I had driven all the way to West Virginia in would be repossessed as soon as I returned home. I simply couldn’t make the payment in full that month, and was behind on my car for the first time in my life.

My car made my life as it was possible. Reliable transportation is a huge bonus in food and beverage, where most workers can’t afford to own and keep a car. It gives me the opportunity to do side hustles with Uber and Instacart — because if you’ve got the car, why not put it to good use? It makes better jobs in better areas accessible.

I can’t do my job without a car. And I was suddenly behind on it. The fear and shame were unbearable, and impossible to hide in the booth. There’s a reason I never became an actor, like I had once fancied. I’m not a great liar.

Since then, I’ve been able to at least make payments properly; but that doesn’t mean I’ve been able to spare any extra for climbing out of that hole. I just haven’t made it any deeper, either. I had been looking forward to someday being able to fill it in and make my way back out. Get back on track, at last.

And then this past month happened. A wedding was coming — plane tickets needed to be bought, and time off needed to be scheduled. It would be tight, but I knew I could manage it. It was worth it, and I wouldn’t wish myself back. I just maybe wouldn’t have flown in so early…

And then we came home to a hurricane.

Dorian was on his way up the east coast by the time we got home. In Charleston, there’s only one thing to do when a category 3 is even thinking about blowing through: close everything, evacuate or hunker down, and wait.

My brother and I had just gotten home. We had missed a week of work. We didn’t have the resources to up and leave, so we hunkered down and were fine. Even if it meant missing another few days’ work.

This month has been a doozy, financially. There just wasn’t enough soon enough.

I heard the tow truck pull into our apartment drive last night, heard chains clinking and car doors opening and closing. But our next door neighbor is a contractor, and people in big trucks with heavy equipment come through at all hours all the time. The sound of a tow truck coming for your car is a weirdly normal sound for us. So I went back to sleep, thinking nothing of it.

And this morning, my car was gone.

I’m not the first to have my car repossessed, and I sure as hell won’t be the last. The fact that it happened to me is just ridiculously embarrassing. I paid off my last car a year and a half ahead of time, and was planning to do the same this time around. I had finally put together a budget I could stick to, and was doing well. I was making payments on time, even if I wasn’t filling in every hole yet.

I was raised by decent people who have also learned money management the hard way. They worked so hard to set me up for success, to help me form good habits early on, so I could avoid the mistakes they made. They’ve lent me money when every credit card was maxed out and school payments were due. They’ve been patient when I’ve been slow to pay them back.

All I can think of is how I’ve let them down, and how I’ve let myself down. Is it very sad that I’ve told the internet about my car before my mom, who could actually help me?

I know what I’m going to do next. I’m going to wait until 8 am and call the bank who set me up with the car in the first place. I’m going to find out where its been taken, at least locate it, and see if I have the cash to get it out of tow. If I do, my life can go on a little skinnier than before, but still livable. If not… I guess we’ll see.

All I know is that I’m going to handle it, and own it, and ask my parents for emotional support. I won’t ask them for money after everything I’ve asked them money for. I can take care of this. All of it can be dealt with easily, with the right phone call at the right time. It’s not hard, its just a blow to my pride. All I really want is for my mom and dad to believe I can handle it as much as I think I can. I want to be an adult who can take care of her own self-made problems with nothing more than a quick, “We’ve got your back,” from the people who matter.

At the end of the day, what seemed an hour and a half ago like cause for despair may turn out to be a few hours’ inconvenience, caused by a young person’s momentary financial woes. It depends on how you handle it.

And handling crap is something I’ve gotten sadly good at.