My wife has her pretentious friend and her blowhard husband from Geneva come over for dinner about every six months. I tried to fake being sick the last time but she figured out my plan when she saw I was scheduled to play golf the next morning.

Anyway, the last time they were here they were using their French they were studying in preparation for a trip there. Like we didn’t all backpack through Paris when we were in college, looking for Jim Morrison’s grave? Since we were having a barbecue I casually mentioned “dijon vu – the same mustard as before,” and they totally bought it.  Idiots.

I also laughed when I heard they never took that trip to France.  Seems like a little layoff problem got in the way. Not like any of us are immune.  I’ve been consulting now for two years since I took my package from the bank. It’s a good life sometimes, but sometimes you’re waiting on an invoice and some bills come due and you’re not sure how to pull it off.  That’s why I am quite familiar with St. Charles Title Loans.  They spot me with cash against my Lexus just when I need it.  Last time I took $4000, the time before $5000. You get the money in a day, pay your bills, then pay off that one when your own money comes in.  I’ve kept a clean credit record despite all adverse circumstances.

Take that to France, losers.

By the way St Charles is near, Addison, Downers Grove, Naperville, Winfield, and York.

I’m one bad relationship away from having 30 cats.  My last boyfriend, Xavier, left me because he decided recently he should be dating latinas.  This just occurred to him?

That wasn’t the only thing he left me.  I got stuck paying for my apartment by myself, and in the three months it took for me to get a new roommate, I got behind by $900.  I don’t have credit cards anymore, so that meant I couldn’t pay rent one month and other bills too.  I didn’t know what to do, so I went on the Internet and looked for ways of getting loans.  My friend said it would be impossible in this economy, especially since I have bad credit.  But I found out about car title loans – loans you can get if your car is paid for.  That’s me! I bought my Saturn used, for cash, three years ago.

So I decided to go with Hanover Park Title Loans, a car title loan company that works online.  You just fill out the forms, get approved almost instantly, and the cash is sent electronically, so you don’t even have to wait for a check to clear.

Meanwhile, the new roommate and I are talking about getting a cat.  The first cat.

By the way Hanover Park is near Schaumburg, Bloomingdale, Addison, Elmhurst, and Hoffman Estates.

I had a good job with good authority.  But then I learned what they say, if you think you’re a person of some influence, try ordering somebody else’s dog around.

Which has kinda been my situation since losing my job last year.  My wife works still, thankfully, and when the kids are off at school it’s just me and the neighbor’s dog and the fish.  The fish pretty much keeps to himself (herself?), but that dog  has a mind of his own.

I also found that my finances were more in control of me than me of them. We could keep the regular expenses covered with my wife’s income and what severance and unemployment I was drawing, but then we got hit with one thing after another.  The cards were maxed out and I didn’t have the money needed to fix my car — what I needed to go on job interviews.  That’s when I did something people don’t talk about much in DuPage County.  I searched on the internet for a car title loan.

I’m here to say it’s a smart strategy under certain circumstances.  I’m using my car to fix my car.  And it was a relatively pain free process: I went to Glen Ellyn Title Loans online, a car title loans company that gets you your cash in under 24 hours, electronically transferred into your checking account.  I’d recommend it to anyone — even my dog.

By the way Glen Ellyn is near Lombard, Wheaton, Carol Stream, Addison, and Villa Park.

My boss at my old job brought in this motivational speaker for the sales staff.  Which is such b.s. because he’d give all the best accounts to his chippie, the blonde he was hot for even though she was only working him for that.

Anyway, during the seminar at the Ramada on North Avenue the speaker was extolling the importance of “following your dreams.” I couldn’t help myself, I just blurted out, “except for that one where you’re naked at work.”  Which I honestly didn’t think was so bad – it definitely was one of as the lighter moments of that day. But I got pink slipped the next week.

This did not come at a good time.  I was getting socked with some medical bills and then the refrigerator went out.  My severance and unemployment weren’t enough to cover everything, and my credit cards were maxed as was my home equity loan.  So I went to the Internet and found Glendale Heights Title Loans, a car title loan company. They are so easy to work with – I was able to get that money in a day, in time to go take advantage of a sale at Abt.

Now, at my new job, I zip the lip in front of the boss.  So much easier this way.

By the way Glendale Heights is near Carol Stream, Roselle, Addison, Glen Ellyn, and Lombard.

My husband’s family is from Arkansas, which is a far distance up here to the Chicago area in Bensenville. They are such hillbillies, they spend more on their pickup trucks than on education. They drive around the country to deer with their cars … on purpose! You can tell how old his mother is by the number of rings in her bathtub. And speaking of his mother, she wanted to tell our kids how to sneak booze into sporting events. Ay carumba!

So when my husband told me he lent his brother $600 to buy an old boat for fishing, I went through the roof. I needed that money for some home improvements we planned on, literally, to fix the roof. So I insisted he come up with ideas on finding that money before winter came.

He found a company called Car Title Loans n Bensenville , where they lend you cash based on the value of your car title. We got a car title loan on his pickup truck for exactly $600 – so now when he pays that off he knows it’s all about him and his brother going fishing on the Fox River. As for me, I buy my fish in the groceria.

By the way Bensenville is near Wood Dale, Addison, Nothlake, Schiller Park, and Elmhurst.

My mother has been haggling me to get married for about 23 years. She says it’s just not right for a girl in Bartlett to be single after the age of 30. Sheesh. Lately she’s been on my case about how I’ve allowed my cats (four of them) to “fill a void” in my life. She clipped these questions from the Internet that she thinks identifies my problem:

• Do you kiss your cat on the whiskers?
• Do you feed your cat tidbits from the table with your fork?
• Does your cat sleep on your head?
• Do you like it?
• Do you have more than four opened but rejected cans of cat food in the refrigerator?
• Do you watch bad TV because the cat is sleeping on the remote?
• Will you stand at the open door indefinitely in the freezing rain while your cat sniffs the door, deciding whether to go out or come in?

I answered yes to all of them, so I guess I’m guilty. So here’s the rub: She insisted I go on a cruise to meet a man. It seemed like a good idea at the time. So I plunked down my Visa to go on a 9 day cruise to meet the man of my dreams. Unfortunately, I only seemed to meet guys with toupees who were dreaming that a girl wouldn’t notice such a thing (I actually said to one guy, “is that a cat on your head?”). What I ended up with was a $2300 Visa bill just when my company laid off more than a thousand people, including me.

The cats stayed, fortunately, and so I wasn’t all alone in this problem. Next, I discovered I could get some money to cover the Visa charges until I find a new job. My source? Bartlett Title Loans, a car title loan company that lends money based on the title to your car. My Rav-4 has been handy for trips to the vet and a lot else. But now it’s where I find cash when in a pinch. Good deal!

By the way Bartlett is near Bloomingdale, Schaumburg, Elk Grove Village, Carol Stream, and Addison.

My wife says that if it weren’t for marriage, men would go through life thinking they had no faults at all.

I’m your best example of that. I got a degree in accounting. I keep my car properly serviced and in good condition. I go to the gym and don’t eat hamburgers for lunch.

But apparently I don’t know how to save money. My wife, she’s always looking at ways to save money. Like the jacuzzi we installed off our back patio. We’ve used it twice since putting it in last fall. The first day and the second day it was there. We got it at 50% off. And if you go into the stores these days, it seems like everything’s 50% off. How about that?

Except, even 50% adds up in the debt column. So when we both lost our jobs (funny, but even with extra time on our hands, we’d rather my brother’s kids play sports at Addison Trail High School than soak ourselves outdoors where the neighbors might see us), when we both lost our jobs we had a hard time paying the bills.

That’s when I looked at some assets, our cars, both paid for, as a way to get some emergency cash. I went to Addison Title Loans for a cash advance on both vehicles. It was easy, the online application has changed the car title loan world, and we got money in a day.

So my wife actually acknowledged this solution was a winner. Whew, I’m so relieved to hear that.

By the way Addison is near Villa Park, Lombard, Elmhurst, Wood Dale, and Bensenville.