This is what happens when I try to buy a car

I need to buy a new car.  Mine is dead and has been sitting in the driveway for a couple of months.  T and I are sharing his car.  It is not an ideal situation, but I do not have the energy to devote to buying a new car.  In early December I tried to throw myself into a car buying situation, assuming I would sink or swim.  I sunk.  I applied for a loan and it was approved.  Then what?  Where's the car?  You mean I have to actually do some work to find one?  Do I have to interact with salespeople?  Do I have to talk to strangers?  NOOOOO.  The loan officers were worried.  They could not understand why I was not buying. They called and left urgent messages.  I would not pick up the phone.  I was filled with dread whenever the phone rang or I received an email.  Finally they offered me the services of a car concierge who works for the credit union to make things easy for buyers.  I would not answer his phone calls, either. 

In fact, I ignore most phone calls because Florida is filled with scam artists who sit around every day calling retired people trying to trick us out of our money.  We actually started getting these con-calls the same day we got our land line telephone installed, so I can only imagine the cable company providing our phone service is routinely selling new phone listings to scumbags.  Nice.  Consequently, I stopped answering the phone months ago.  Sometimes, when I am in just the right mood, I pick up and tell whoever is at the other end of the line to take my name off their list and never call me again.  I use my best cold-hearted bitch voice.  That is always kind of fun.  

This aversive reaction is a direct result of working in an office for so many years.  I OD’d on communication a long time ago.  So what if I have been retired for over a year now.  I still have not recovered.  I may never recover.  It is the principle of the thing.  The thought of having to do anything that resembles office work (including answering the damn phone) makes me want to run off screaming into the night. Every time the phone rings my stomach turns.  If I have an administrative, real-life issue I must suffer through, or a deadline I have to meet, I freak out.  I ignore it, procrastinate; all the things I could NEVER do when I had a job.  It makes me feel so good to ignore things.  By the way, if you want to reach me, call my land line phone or email me.  If I am home and I can see it is you, I will pick up the phone or call you back.  Do not even think about calling me on my cell phone.  The ringer is turned off and I rarely turn the cell phone on unless I am stuck waiting in a doctor’s office and need to play solitaire.  My cell phone is purely an ornamental status symbol.

Getting back to my car buying experience, I finally emailed (note I did not use the phone) the bank, car concierge, and salespeople and let them know I changed my mind.  I said I would reapply in the New Year when “things settled down for me.”  Ha!  I guess I showed them!  Maybe if I put this off long enough T will give me his car and then he will go through the effort of buying a new car for himself.  It is so crazy it might work.