Reason 647 to not be a single mom with teenagers

On any given day, if you were to ask me to list the top ten things I truly hate, shopping for a car would make the list. Other things may appear and disappear from the list, depending on my mood and recent experiences. But going to a car lot and dealing with salesmen ranks just under going to the dentist in my personal opinion.

Unfortunately, I've come to the conclusion that I need to look for a new car this week. When I bought the van a couple of years ago, I honestly thought that I would never have to get another car again. Actually, I think I swore something to that effect. And the van's been good to us, once the initial problems were taken care of. Well, other than the more than a thousand dollars I've recently put into it and the mysteriously low gas mileage ever since.

Last week we found out that my son needs to get a part-time job. It's a requirement if he wants to graduate high school on time. I know, that sounds like a really bizarre statement. But he's goofed up, and we're on our final option. Since he has been trying to fix things, his guidance counselor is willing to let him try a new program that the school is offering. One of the requirements of the program is that he has to work outside the school a minimum of 13 hours a week. (The plus side, in his opinion, is that he'll only attend classes four afternoons a week.)

The only way that this would work out for us is if I let him get his license so that he can drive to work and school. He'll have to take me to work in the mornings, and then I can take the public bus in the afternoons. But I don't want to let him drive the minivan because it's too big, it's too tempting to be the designated driver for all his friends, and because it's too expense to add a teen driver to the insurance on it. A suggestion was offered for me to get a second car, but I don't want to reward him by letting him have his own car since this is happening because he goofed up. Plus he'll be leaving for the Army in 6 months (provided he graduates) and then I'm stuck financing two cars. So my best option is to trade the van in for a cheap, cheap-to-insure, car that (hopefully) has better gas mileage than the van.

I wish there was some sort of personal shopper that would go out, find the perfect car in my price range, and deal with all the paperwork. My son, on the other hand, is all excited and full of "Challengers" and "sound systems" and is eager to go on test drives. (sigh) I'm not looking forward to this week.