Dollars and Common Sense

See, the story doesn’t end there.  There’s more:

At 9:50 I sent him a text - "What's your email address?  Need to send you your credit card balance due as well as need to know what you are doing with the phone.  Bills are in."  As of 11:55pm, no response so I sent another text:  "I'll presume from your lack of response for 2 hours that you are not interested in sharing your email address and that I will not be getting an answer.  I would also presume that since you were notified before Easter that these were in you have no interest in paying your obligations under our gentleman's agreement.  Remember that you received monies for schooling through the military that is now on my credit card.  Those monies were spent elsewhere.  It's cool.  I now know where we stand.  I'm fucked with the extra payments but at least I know where we stand and what direction I need to take going forward."

See, we had a gentleman's agreement that he could stay on my phone plan since I have a pretty attractive rate package.  For full internet, unlimited texting, and pretty much unlimited calling - $40.  But alas, this is not good enough.  Had to go out and buy a new phone on the girlfriend's plan so we didn't have "anything hanging over him."  Could have done a transfer of billing responsibility, but it was too late.  Now there's a $175 contract cancellation fee.  Despite asking several times what we were doing with the phone, we never got an answer.  Guess we know now.  I have my direction and get to eat $175.   

The credit card is for his semester at PNC where he dropped two classes and failed the other.  The military funded most of the cost of tuition and the rest were to be picked up through student loans.  The story is that the person in the financial aid office wasn't doing her part and the loan paperwork was all screwed up on her end.  Now that my other kid is in school - I wonder what really happened here.  Perhaps the online webinar you are required to do wasn't finished, or the promissory note wasn't signed.  It's all online so I'm not sure what happened here.  But anywho... 

The military money went to buy a car – that ended up blowing up.  Despite us having four vehicles.  As you can imagine, since the school didn't get paid - ever - he was sent to collections.  Me wanting to help out made a speakerphone call to the collection agency and we put it on my credit card to keep a 19 year old out of collections.  Nice way to start your credit career.  Now I know that was a mistake and should have followed my own advice that you don't do business with family.  Lesson learned here since I now have to pay off the remaining $2667.19.  Exactly what we needed - more debt.

But let’s take a walk down memory lane shall we?  When the breakup with the “ex” happened, we scrambled to get a room done in the basement for him.  That way he could have his own space.  Framing was done and drywall was already hung but not finished.  Thankfully a neighbor was willing to come over and finish the drywall for me – I’m not exactly a wizard with a mud knife.  From there, installed trim, carpet, and a drop ceiling along with doors.  All to the tune of $2500 or so – which we didn’t have.  If we did have it, I might have done my office first where I spend a good majority of my work day.  But alas, I still have concrete floors and insulated joists over my head. 

This living situation lasted for a couple of months when the girlfriend, girlfriend’s fiancé, and the son got into a whole nasty mess of a relationship.  I think that one’s still posted on the girlfriend’s blog – not sure and really don’t want to look it up.  I already had the feeling that he was going to move out there before it happened.  He was just looking for something to blame it on.  He got his wish on Superbowl Sunday with a big blowup.  This isn’t the first time I’ve been blocked or had no way to contact him.  I didn’t get his phone number for over a month after he moved in with the girlfriend. 

The move in with the girlfriend actually happened over one reason as well.  My wife and I didn’t want girls sleeping in his bed under our roof.  I’m pretty sure that any of the parents reading could understand this.  Hell, probably most people would get this.  But it happened anyway.  Multiple times despite our simple request to respect our house.  Talk about shitting in your own cage and then blaming something else. 

With the military money car blown up, he had no vehicle.  To help him out, we let him drive one of our cars.  All the way from South Bend to Whiting for work – after the whole blow up.  Talk about miles on that vehicle now.  We even paid for what I believe to be the only oil change in the car when he returned it. 

So this whole fiasco has now cost me over $5000 in order to try and help him out.  You can see the appreciation in his posts.  See, things are fine if Son gets what Son wants.  Things are fine when there’s no girlfriend.  As soon as there’s a girlfriend – things change.  Then we don’t get it – we don’t understand – we are trying to control his life – we are blah, blah, blah. 

Where’s my Prozac?