After a week and a half of silence from USAA I got on the phone this morning and navigated their stupid menu system after three tries to get to a human being—the first two tries landed me in the voicemail of my Customer-Non-Service Representative. Once I’d wrangled a live person and explained what I was calling about, they transferred me to a specialist who listened to my situation, put me on hold, and then conferenced me in with a woman at the title/salvage yard in New York. She helpfully told me they were waiting on the lien release, which I hadn’t included in the paperwork. After ascertaining what it was I was supposed to send along, I asked them repeatedly why I hadn’t been contacted about the delay or with further instructions, and they basically deflected. Irritated, I found the document in my files and sent it off FedEx this afternoon; hopefully I’ll hear something back before Christmas and we can go get a new fucking car. Meanwhile I’ve slagged the woman who hasn’t been assisting me to everyone at USAA.

I dropped the second rental off at Budget this afternoon, and we’ll see if we can make it through the holidays with one vehicle. This rental was a full-size Chevy Malibu, and for a Chevy it really was quite a nice car. The controls were almost exactly the same as the Trailblazer we rented in New York, so there was no learning curve to go from one car to the other. Heated seats and remote start are definitely on the list of must-have items for the new vehicle.