This is my Kia. The Kia has a boo-boo.
This is the story of How the Kia Got Its Boo-Boo, and other related injustices.
She awoke to a blizzard. The kind where before your eyes are even open you know it's snowing. It's a sixth sense of sorts, or maybe just an offshoot of the sense of smell. It's funny that precipitation has a smell. In her half-asleep state, she considered playing hooky and staying in bed all day. Then she remembered her meeting. "How To Manage Your Debt In a Down Economy." She had signed up months ago, telling herself that the meeting would be the start of "getting serious about her finances, saving, investing, and no longer living paycheck-to-paycheck." Up until that morning she had allowed herself to run her account to zero month after month. When she ran out of money before her next paycheck, she would just throw it on her credit card and tell herself she would be paying it back soon... real soon. She had never really denied herself what she thought she deserved, and the time had come to figure out how she was going to pay it all back. She just hated that it had to be snowing.
It took everything she had to drag herself out of bed and stumble through the living room to her bathroom. It was always freezing in the old house, and for the millionth time she cursed her landlord and his exorbitant rent. Granted, it was a fantastic neighborhood, but the house leaked like a sieve.
She got ready quickly and poured herself a coffee on the way out the door. They typically had coffee had these events, but it wasn't something she was willing to leave to chance. Her roommate had started her car for her 30 minutes earlier when she had left for her office. She knew she was lucky. A random roommate off the internet, and after a couple months of living together, they were already friends. It was too cold for the snow to melt, as it often did in the city, so she got the scraper out of her backseat of the car. Her hair was still wet and began to freeze as she quickly brushed the snow off the windows, just enough to be able to see. Again, she was late. She was always late. She wished she could just succumb to her tardiness and allow herself to be one of those people whose friends tell her to arrive half an hour before she is really supposed to be there. But she just couldn't let herself not care. She was always late, but that always embarrassed her. Because it was typically only five to ten minutes late, she would find herself repeating in her head, almost chanting, throughout her drive, "I'll be close. I'll be close." That morning was no different.
She pulled up to the building and instantly remembered the horrible parking situation. She glared at the clock: already ten minutes late and no time to park a few blocks away and walk. It hardly seemed right to use her credit card unnecessarily to pay for parking when she was going to a debt management seminar, but it looked like she might not have a choice. She had been dating a guy who lived a couple blocks away from the building for the last three years or so. They were still dating, but she had learned her lesson by then and wasn't about to call it anything more than just dating, not yet at least. Given her three years of experience with the neighborhood, she knew parking spots turned over quickly, so she gave herself "one more block" before conceding to paying for city parking. After turning the corner, she miraculously found a (free) street parking spot. Maybe the day wouldn't turn out so bad after all.
She rushed into the lobby and apologized to the receptionist for being late, as if the receptionist cared whether she was there or not.
"Don't worry honey. We've delayed the presentation until 9:15. Seems everyone is having a little trouble in this weather," she cooed, nodding excessively.
With a huge sigh of relief and a silent pat on the back for not paying to park, she helped herself to a steaming cup of free coffee and gathered her presentation packet. She walked into the large room, expecting to recognize more people than she did. Sadly, she knew too many people who were in the same situation she was, having taken out a good-sized mortgage on an education that couldn't quite provide a return on the investment. She chose a seat near the front of the room, telling herself she was going to be serious about this presentation, "note-taking serious." As she waited, she alternated between flipping through the presentation packet and checking her Blackberry (the "Crackberry," as she called it). The airwaves were uncommonly slow that morning. A couple lawyers at her firm had already emailed to report that they would not be making the commute that morning, but vowed to "work from home." She resorted to staring out the window as she waited for the presentation to begin. The normal mountain view was barely visible through the snow, and she mused at the massive windows of the conference room. It was the same conference room used for the many legal presentations mandated by the state. It struck her as just another mockery of her life choices. "See this," the window taunted, "all you can do is look..." Just as she felt the bitterness start to creep back in, the presenter entered the room and tapped his microphone to signal the beginning of the presentation.
"Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us today on this snowy Wednesday morning. We applaud your commitment to your finances," the presenter began. He was a short, fit man, with curly dark hair. Already she hated him. This guy clearly had it all together. He had probably never been in the kind of debt that would force one to a debt management seminar, and, to make matters worse, it was his job to go around the country talking to people about how he had "gotten control," paid off all his debt, and how awesome his life was now because of it. It was going to be a long morning.
"I would like to start off by saying I know how daunting it is to be in debt, but I want to assure you that you are not alone. There are other lawyers out there in just as much debt as you are." He paused, as though the idea had just come to him. "In fact, would everyone please stand." The presenter cautiously looked around the room as people began getting to their feet. She reluctantly stood up, really, really not wanting to do that whole "introduce yourself to your neighbor thing." If she had known what was really coming, however, she would have jumped at that chance.
"Now, when I say your level of school debt, will you please sit down," the presenter continued, with a certain air of self-satisfaction and smugness.
She immediately felt her heart start to race and did a quick calculation in her head. She took a deep breath as the numbers began floating through the room.
"25,000 dollars," the presenter began. She was relieved when no one sat. There were a couple other attendees that looked as nervous as she felt, and somehow that consoled her just a bit. Misery does love company.
"50,000 dollars," came the next number. Someone raised their hand to ask whether undergraduate debt should be included in the total number. Another yelled out whether the group should differentiate between government loans and private loans. The presenter's short answer was to include all school debt, undergraduate, graduate, law school, private and public. At that announcement, she felt slightly better about her situation. There had to be someone there who was a career student, who pursued law school after getting some obscure PhD that took ten years... or even a doctor. She had heard a rumor in law school once that an open-heart surgeon (she loved that phrase... because, really, was there any other kind?) decided to go to law school to defend malpractice suits against doctors. Where was that guy when she needed him?
"125,000," she heard the presenter say. Clearly, she had missed a few numbers in there, but it didn't matter. He was nowhere near her number yet. About half the room sat at the mention of 125,000. She could tell those were the people who thought they had it bad and were just now realizing how much worse it could have been for them. They could be in her shoes.
"150,000 dollars." Everyone else but her and three other people sat down. A quick calculation revealed that those people likely didn't have any undergraduate debt or had intelligently paid it off before committing to being a lawyer for the rest of their lives.
"175,000?" At this point, the presenter was asking, and in the same tone, judging. Judging really hard. Two more people sat down. She stayed standing, feeling the tears stinging the back of her eyes. She cleared her throat and made eye contact with the only other person still on his feet. They exchanged half-smiles. The kind of half-smiles that really said "please, please have more debt than me..."
"200,000 dollars." The other guy took his seat, with the relief of a man saved from a death row sentence at the last possible minute. It was official. She had the most debt out of anyone in that room, which was saying a lot. This was a debt-management seminar, after all. This was for the people who had it really bad. It was one thing to have the most debt out of her group of friends. Most of them were trust fund babies anyway. It was entirely another thing to have the most debt out of everyone at the debt crisis seminar. She stayed standing, probably more out of shock and self-loathing than anything else. The presenter didn't know what to say. Clearly, he hadn't thought this little exercise through in its entirety. The people were staring at her, waiting for a reaction. She couldn't believe she didn't burst into tears right there and scramble out of the conference room.
"So, may we ask how much debt you do have?" The presenter asked She couldn't believe he asked. Wasn't it bad enough it was over 200,000 dollars? OVER 200,000 dollars, and he needed an exact number?!?
"240,000," she heard herself say quietly. Or maybe it wasn't quietly. Maybe it just seemed quiet through the roar of rage pounding through her head. She could hardly believe she had answered him. 240,000 dollars. For what? To be a lawyer?!?! It hardly made any sense to her anymore. Why in the world did she do such a thing?!? HOW had she done such a thing?!?! Suddenly it was all a blur and she knew she had to sit down... immediately.
***
