*collapse*

Ugh, I'm so tired that I'm not even sure where to begin... We finally got the car situation taken care of last Saturday and everything should be better now, right? Wrong. Andrea was pulled over the cops on Thursday afternoon and found out that she had a warrant for not taking care of her last ticket. The new car gets towed to an impound and she is taken downtown where she is fingerprinted, photographed, and held in jail.

Half an hour of investigation online and in the phone book turns up a phone number where I get a neat voice-driven automated information system that tells me she is being held in custody. Wow, I did not know that. =| The officer that arrested her calls me to let me know she is being held until a judge can see her to decide what to do. Then I finally get a call from her in prison, sobbing and scared, and I can give her no more information than she already knows.

Unsure of what to do or who to turn to, I start dialing family from both sides. Normally, her dad can help out with any financial problems that come her way, but since her dad got re-married, he's been flat broke. Grudgingly, I turn to my side of the family and amazingly my grandparents have enough stashed away to help us out (the same grandparents who were deep in debt until declaring bankruptcy two years ago, then received a settlement from a traffic accident).

Everyone in the family is upset with her, each for their own reasons, which isn't quite the reaction I was expecting from her super-religious family members. I'm grumpy because I'm going to miss a day of work because I'm stuck at home with the kids. Among the calls to and from family, I received a few calls from various offices downtown that finally flesh out the remaining parts of the puzzle: an 11pm court appearance that night and $1500 cash bond to release her if she's denied release. If I didn't so desperately need her to take care of the kids while I'm at work, I would agree with other family members and leave her in jail. Yeah, it's cruel but fitting after all the shit she's dropped on me and the kids lately.

12:30am drags it's ugly ass around and I get another call from prison with bad news. The judge denied the release and will keep her until the 13th when she is scheduled to appear in Tempe court for the deliquent ticket, unless her bond can be paid. Weariness overcomes my body and I pass out until the phone rings again at 4am. She has no concept of time behind bars and wanted to find out what was going on. I don't remember what I said, but I don't think it was too polite and I passed out again until 7am when she calls back yet again. Whatever happened to being entitled to *one* phone call in prison? By this time, I'm about ready to ignore the calls but I answer anyway. Same conversation again... "I don't know what to do... I'm scared... tell the kids I love them... bye."

8am and my grandparents head out to the bank to withdraw the money and send $1700 over by Moneygram. Thank the gods for old people waking up at the buttcrack of dawn and doing stuff. I call up Enterprise and reserve a car for today so I can get things taken care of so I can get on with life again. A quick shower later, I feed the kids and get them changed before the rental agent drives up with the car. The last $250 I had from my paycheck gets sucked away and I sit behind the wheel of a quaint little gold '06 Chevy Cobalt (reminds me a lot of the Aveo, but feels like a go-kart compared to the newly-impounded Blue Beast) and the adventure continues.

I managed to get a form to receive the Moneygram transfer, but it took literally seven stops at different stores in the area before finally finding one that could cash out such a large transfer. Apparently, all locations can do up to about $700 at once, except US Bank which could do $900. Slowly the limit was rising, but finally Ace Cash Express said they didn't have any limit. Two and a half aggrivating hours later, I managed to pick up my $1700 transfer. *sigh*

I make a pit stop at home to pick up more drinks for the kids and get Fey out of her wet outfit (she passed out and dripped her water all over herself during the drive). I get the info on the bond payment location and head to downtown Phoenix. After parking on the 6th floor of a nearby parking garage, I learned how slow a pair of 3-year-old feet can really move as the napless one, Kaylee, starts getting tired. After a long two-block trek, we spend an hour waiting to make the payment. The office has the "take a number" dispenser, but nobody pays attention to it because 33 was being helped all the time I was there, despite my number being 48. On the bright side, the clerk said the bond was only $1080, so we have a little bit of extra cash just in case any other fees or charges show up.

The next order of business was locating the new car. Luckily, a call to the Arizona DPS office yielded instant results and I found the yard that the car was towed to. Rushing over there before they closed for the weekend, I was denied because I had no way to prove I was the owner of the car because the insurance card, title, and registration weren't in the glove compartment anymore. A trip to the insurance agency yielded a new insurance card, but it was too late to do any good today. $94 for the tow plus a $20/day extra fee and $25 after-hours processing fee should get the car out tomorrow or Sunday.

So at the moment, we're just waiting for the jail to process her and let her go. Apparently it can take up to 24 hours, so I'm expecting a call at 2am or some other horridly inconvenient time from her again to pick her up.

In total, I spent $1336 today (including food), but I'm not really expecting that she will pay me back. On top of that, I have now missed two days of work and probably won't be able to make it all up this weekend. She has managed to piss off virtually everyone I know in one way or another, too. Why, oh why did I have to go and say those two evil words five years ago: "I do." I am so done with her and wish we could hurry up and get the divorce over and done with. I want a nice and clean apartment again and a car that is only mine again. I don't want her crap littered under my every footstep. I just want some peace and quiet again. I am going to try and get some some well-deserved rest now.

Moral of the story: Sometimes one's own personal feelings must get put aside to do the right thing. And the sooner that thing gets done, the sooner you can rest and get on with life.