the hypercube of happydalek

I'm visiting my folks for the week.  I got to town Thursday evening, and I already can't wait to get back to my apartment.  I love my family, but geez.  A little smothery.  Just a bit.  But they mean well.  And they got me a better car to use, so I can't speak too poorly of them. ;)

Oh, yeah.  Did I mentiion?  I have a new(er) car, now.  I think.  Sort of?

The car I've been driving that I've considered mine is technically my parents' car.  It's in their name, but I have on numerous occasions paid for repairs and the insurance, and I always pay for the gas.  But it's an old car (1992 Ford Crown Victoria) with 206,000 miles on it that consumes petroleum products like gas is still a dollar a gallon.  It's a really good car in a lot of ways, but its days are numbered.  So my dad went out and bought a 2003 Buick Century that was, quite literally, previously owned by an old lady who only used it to drive to church and the market.  It had 8800 miles on it.  Yes, that's the right amount of zereos.  Eighty-eight hundred miles.  Less than 10,000.  And it's nearly nine years old.  He paid less than $8,000 dollars for it, too.  So it's in his name, just like my old car, so it's technically his.  But he's like, "we pretty much got it for you, but if you want to keep driving the old one, that's okay, we'll just keep it."

And I'm going, O_o about the whole thing, because did my parents really just buy me a car?  That's not a thing my parents do. 

Is it? 

I hate this strange limbo I'm in, where I'm pretty much moved out of my parents' place, but I'm living on loan money, and my mom keeps talking about when school ends and I have to move back in with them, and I'm thinking that isn't the scenario I should be planning for (although yes, as a backup plan, it's nice to know that it's an option), and now it's like, "Here!  Have a car!" Except that it's not in my name, so will I be expected to pay them for it when I am financially able to?  That's what I would expect myself to do.  And my dad never talks directly about money and who pays for what, which is annoying.  The only reason I started paying the insurance on the car was because I found out how much it cost, and starting handing him checks of my own volition.  Their way of telling me it was my car was to say, "we told the insurance company that you are the primary driver of the new car," so I suppose that makes it fairly clear that yes, it's intended for my use.  So now I'm worried that I might be coming off as a wee bit ungrateful because I don't know what exactly what the expectations are, here. 

Now my mom is pressuring me to get health insurance.  Her reasoning is, quite understandably, that if I were to get horribly mutilated and injured in an accident, it would wipe out their retirement savings to care for me.  And yes, okay, point taken.  The thing is, all the insurance plans I can find cost over one hundred dollars a month.  That may not sound like much, but my budget is fairly tight, since my goal was to not spend all the loan money I was receiving so that I would be able to start repaying it when I graduate.  Annual health insurance would eat another one thousand dollars of my borrowed funds to cover the possibility that I would get seriously injured or ill, which so far has not happened in the preceding three or four years that I have also not had health insurance.  Odds are that I could continue to roll those dice and come out not injured/sick until I get a job with medical benefits, but that WHAT IF? element of it kind of looms large.  I figure if I did pay for insurance, then I would use it.  The plan I'm considering at least pays for preventive exams (including eye exams), so I could finally get around to having my lady plumbing checked out for free, which I've never had done and probably should since you're supposed to start that when you're 18 and I'm now 27, and I could update my glasses for less money than paying out of pocket, which I have not done for probably three years, at least.  But still.  Geez.  A thousand bucks.  For the security of knowing I wouldn't wipe out my parents' savings, maybe it's worth it.  But it will definitely contribute to the wiping out of my savings. 

Now I understand better why people get married.  Lots more security when you can split these costs across two paychecks, and so you're not soley dependent on your aging parents.  Bleh.

I accidentally broke the glass turntable plate in my roommate's microwave oven.  It is replaceable, but to order it and have it delivered on time before we both have to move out, it will cost over $40.  To replace the entire microwave (a la Walmart) would cost about $60.  I have looked on ebay and Amazon for a cheaper plate, but of course the companies have to design their products so that ONLY the replacements they sell will fit.  This one is barely a year old and has been functioning without the plate for over a month now.  (It was on my list of Things To Buy, really, but Life kept interfering and making me forget.)   I'm thinking it really isn't worth it financially to fork over 2/3 the price of a new microwave to replace a stupid glass plate, but I feel guilty about breaking it and I definitely can't afford to buy a new microwave.  Maybe I could take the cost out of my half of the security deposit and give it to him as compensation?

I know, stimulating stuff going on in my life right now. 

In other news, I finished Betrayal, the first of the Legacy of the Force novels, and I'm a fourth of the way into the sequel, Bloodlines.  Betrayal finally got a little more interesting towards the end, but it felt kind of hollow when I had to wade through hundreds of pages of bloated political yammering, lightened only by the occasional dogfight and fannish in-joke.  Bloodlines is about the same size, but hopefully will be less bogged-down in exposition.  Please. 

Not cool.

It appears my dvd player has just given up the ghost.  It's gone completely dead, with absolutely no warning whatsoever.  Dang it, it wasn't more than three years old!  This is the second one in five years, too.  (Admittedly, I accidentally killed the first one by putting a pc game disc in it that corrupted it, so my bad.  But still.)  Maybe I should stop buying dirt-cheap, off-brand electronics.  On the other hand, I never have any money for the good stuff.  Rabbits! 

Ah, well.  Off to WalMart, I s'pose.