I have successfully been in AA for four years and am very happy to talk about it. But it’s funny how people in my meetings come from all walks of life. And sometimes there’s a little tension because of it. We have this one guy from the western side of Rt. 59, in the new subdivisions, and the way that guy talks it’s like his problems are bigger than everyone elses’.  I just blurted out one day that I guess my inferiority complex is not as good as yours.

But he laughed. We all did.  And we all got to sharing our whole problem, the family tensions, of the economy. It seems like everyone’s either in trouble or worried about the trouble to come. And we talk it through. One trick I learned there was something that came in handy just a few weeks ago. I had to travel to South Dakota to take care of my mother who is very ill. I didn’t have the cash to buy a plane or even a bus ticket, and my car was not in great shape. But my friend from the meeting suggested I go to Streamwood Title Loans, a car title loans company that’s all online.  Sure enough, I was able to get about $800 to fix my car, and I got the money fast, in time to get that repair and drive out to Rapid City. I took car of mother for a week until my sister could get there. It was a very smart thing to do.

By the way Streamwood is near Bartlett, Elgin, Hanover Park, Poplar Creek, and Schaumburg.

Carelessly planned projects take three times longer to complete than expected. Carefully planned projects take four times longer to complete than expected, mostly because the planners expect their planning to reduce the time it takes. And sometimes your plan is about as useful as toilet paper.

I should know, I’m a planner.  And the best laid plans … well, you know. I had our family finances all planned out. My husband works full time, I work part time since the kids are in school.  We take two vacations a year.  We would replace our old 1970s kitchen within five years of buying our house.

What screwed that up was this Bush economy. My husband lost his job at Motorola. I had trouble finding work at the payscale I was used to. Our daughter is a prodigy and they tell us she needs to go to a special “genius camp” in North Carolina next summer that costs $8000 for a month ($5000 after a scholarship).

So the question is, can I forget the kitchen until things turn around, and send my daughter to this camp? Her heart is set on it, so we looked into borrowing the $5000.  Forget banks, they’ll take your home away from you if you’re not careful. I found a car title loan company online, Schaumburg Title Loans, that valued our Escalade at worth $7000 in a loan. OK, not in the plan, but we did it. And I’ll do it again if the “plan” calls for it.

By the way Schaumburg is near Des Plaines, Elgin, Hoffman Estates, Rolling Meadows, and Roselle.

I was under the impression that to steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research.

My professor at Triton didn’t quite see it that way.  So I was going to flunk her course, but she gave me an option. Take it again.  Which might sound reasonable until you figure out you’re going to have to pay twice for honor of enduring the pain twice.

But that’s life. Lesson learned. The even bigger problem was this was an expense I didn’t anticipate. And it caught me short.

So I did more research, on the Internet, and found a way to get fast cash.  You can use your car title, if you own it outright, to get a car title loan. I went to Rolling Meadows Title Loans for mine.  It was easy and fast and I got my money in a day. Amazing.

Next semester, I should be this resourceful in my schoolwork.

By the way Rolling Meadows is near Arlington Heights, Mt Prospect, Wheeling, Elk Grove Village, and Schaumburg.

We have enough youth: how about a fountain of “smart”?

That thought struck me when I was breaking the news to my kids, both in their 20s, that it was time to move out or start paying rent. Both graduated from the College of DuPage with good grades. Both spend hours and hours on their computers. Both eat food like there isn’t an obesity crisis in this country. And neither of them has had a job other than as clerks in video stores.

Then my genius son managed to rack up a bunch of bills on my credit card buying some electronic Wii thing that I don’t really understand. And my brilliant daughter, his partner in crime, also bought some computer stuff that makes me wonder if she’s operating some international computer scam. I ask questions and they blizzard me with techno speak that completely baffles me.

So I presented them both with a total of $2300 in charges that I was not going to cover. I was trying to get them to get their keysters in gear and go find jobs. Guess what they did: they figured out the cars their father gave them when they graduated college (it was in the divorce settlement) could get them car title loans. They showed me how they did it. They went to Hoffman Estates Title Loans and were able to cover those debts with this loan.

I’m not a big one on borrowing money when you don’t have a plan to actually pay it back (to their credit, they’ve both gone back to working part time at Blockbuster while they look for full time work, just to pay off this loan). But I have to hand it to them, they do seem to understand assets and collateral. They should go to work as mortgage bankers.

By the way Hoffman Estates is near Streamwood, Hanover Park, Roselle, Schaumburg, and Bartlett.

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.

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.