Stressful Shopping

Time to replace Hubby's car.  Boy that sure snuck up and bit me in the butt.  Did I mention car shopping is not my cup of tea? And that I am a ball of nerves with any big ticket purchase?  even a couch!  Well, on with the story.

image found here Small cars are a must for Oki roads. Not sure why they're usually boxy though.

See here in Okinawa, Americans have to carry 2 kinds of insurance.  One is very similar to the insurance in the States.  Then there is the JCI or Japanese Compulsory Insurance requires an inspection, some or a lot of maintenance & paperwork.  At best it's a financial burden, but for many a nightmare.  We already knew it would be cheaper to replace his car than renew the JCI.  Oh, did I mention that he tells me after he started shopping his JCI was almost up.

NOTE TO YOU FINE PEOPLE:  You should tell the one who handles the money when you are gonna need a few thousand dollars.  And not the day you find the car!!!

Well, it worked out well.  We junked his old car.  LOVE the Japanese efficiency for processing paperwork by the way.  All the needed buildings are close together, and one even has a conveyor belt to haul paperwork to the next cubical for processing.   Hours in the car between junk yard, on base and Japanese places for paperwork and we're headed home to eat the sandwiches we picked up.  Nope the guy with the new car calls and said he's in route to meet up with the new car.  YEAH, got it all done in one day!

The car's not perfect, but it's much, much, much better than what he had.  Plus I didn't have to move any money around.  Hooray! Well he barely get's the seats set right and I have to call him to tell him my car broke down at the Japanese post office.

I stressed the out in town post office for two reasons.  First, this post office only has 3 parking spaces for customers and employees.  Second, the post office on base has plenty of parking and taxis on the other end of the parking lot so I figured he'd just say he'd deal with it when he got off work.  So he gets there, we get it home, then to the shop, waiting, waiting, waiting, and they want more than we paid for it.  That last sentence took a week in real time just so you know.  SO now we're car shopping again!

At least junking my car today was a snap...well except of my poor kid had to be in the car for 4 hours instead of in a fun class and with his buddy for sushi go round lunch like last time.  He did remarkably well by the way.  Today I mean. He of course at fried chicken fingers at the sushi restaurant. 

Point to this rant, I'm stressed and I needed to release some of it out.  My low is that I currently do not have a car.  My high is that we are closer to both having better vehicles.  Oh and my BSBP piece is done.  I spent a day this weekend catching up on my shows and ignoring all the stress.  My BSBP beads were a great distraction since the shows themselves were not enough.

No need to feel sorry for me.  We all get stressed.  

Feel free to tell me what's stressing you out at the moment. 

 If you aren't stressed I'd love to hear about the great things happening to you.