Nuts.

It's official -- the world hates me.

Left town today as Chris began vacation, so we decided to head north and visit his parentals in Midland. As we drove down our street, I looked at the gas gauge and said, " Whoops, we need gas." Chris agreed, but instead of stopping near a local gas station, he continued on, opting to buy our gas once we were on the highway.

I thought, "Well, whether it's bought in the city or way the hell out of town, it doesn't matter. We'll get reamed on gas prices anyway." (Gas having gone disproportionately high in the last week or so since Katrina.) As we hit the 400 and headed north, we pulled into the first service station, and immediately started making bets on the cost of gas.

We needn't have bothered.

The car ahead of us was pulled over by OPP inspection (crumpled hood which didn't look like the latch was properly closed, along with broken lights). Apparently the rust on our crappy little 1991 Hyundai Excel likely made the fellow in charge of pulling over cars piss himself with joy. He practically glowed as he indicated that we should pull in, too.

Now, dear readers, our car has been costing us several grand a year to run over the last few years. I've been pushing to car retirement, and to look into options for a new car, as it's obvious our poor little Excel wants to retire and putter off to the car graveyard. Chris, however, has decided to keep it around. But, we reasoned, it's been to several service stations in the last six months alone, and has all manner of work done on it.

To make a long story short -- we lost our plates. They quite literally took the plates off our car (ones Chris has had since he was 16) and told us there was no way in hell we could drive the car anywhere. It must be towed. Well, it was the shiny, worm-eaten cherry on my sundae of money miseries.

I cried. I tried not to -- the OPP fellows were awfully nice. We could have had a $600 fine, thanks to two holes in the floor (one on each side). But I cried anyway. They took me into the trailer with a man who quite likely the nicest tow-truck operator in the northern hemisphere. As I wiped my eyes (they kept reassuring me, saying, "Really, your repairs aren't so bad" -- not understanding how that car has continually fucked us over for money, and that we're not terribly well off to begin with), they looked bewildered at the panic that came across my face at the mention of a $200-$250 towing fee. On top of repairs, new plates, new stickers...

Now, you're probably thinking, "Why don't you just ditch the car?" Really, I would love to. But the car is needed to get Chris to work, way out in the wilds industrial Mississauga.

Well, it turns out, the rest of the towing operators wanted far, far more. They wanted $450 to get us to Midland. More distressingly, they were threatening the driver who had offered to help us out. You see, it wasn't his turn -- even though none of them were willing to cut their horrifying prices to help us out.

But now we're in Midland. A little panicky, a little stressed. And a wee bit depressed. The car is currently sitting at a service centre. No plates. And I have a fucking ton of work to do. Which I must get done now.

So enjoy the rest of your long weekend. Oh, and we're going to the casino (not to worry, we rarely spend more than $40), so if you've got any pull with the gambling/luck-type gods, we'd certainly appreciate any kind words.

This money bullshit is getting out of hand. Nuts.