The initial problems with the Mini got sorted out – mostly – probably helped along by the fact that I filed a complaint with the State Attorney General’s office, which has an online form just for car purchases, along with some helpful articles about car dealer scams that I wish I’d read before I went in to the dealer, just to test-drive. But it was a fast little car that was fun to drive and easy to park, and came with a Vampire Weekend CD that the previous owner had left behind and turned out to be perfect for those rare Seattle days when you can drive with the sunroof open.

Mostly, the Mini didn’t give me any trouble that couldn’t be fixed by a trip to my mechanic, who would roll his eyes and tsk, tsk me for buying it, then re-set whatever sensor I’d managed to trip and charge me the bare minimum. But strange things happened, for example, the right headlight kept going out, due to faulty bulbs, and though it seemed odd that one car should be the recipient of so many faulty bulbs, no loose connection or other possible cause could be found. One of the dashboard airbag alert lights went on after some of The Child’s friends screwed around with the seat. It was re-set, but a few days later, suddenly lit again for no apparent reason.

I decided to ignore it, which is easy enough to do when you’re paying attention to all the little creaks and rattles, which the car had a lot of. I also began watching my speedometer like a hawk: I got pulled over one day for being six miles over the limit, and not long after that, I a police car suddenly appeared behind me on a hill where people often speed. I didn’t get a ticket that day, but I got the message: We’ve got an eye on you. Clearly, bright little cars get noticed, even when they’re not red.

I tried to decide if I should do something about the car – like get rid of it. It was too small for the Red Dog and too small for The Child’s friends; but all the online car pricing estimators have to tell me is how deep I am in the hole on this car.

The hole was as deep as a well, or perhaps some other sort of pit.

When The Departed left, it was after a number of very large purchases had been made. Some of those purchases, not surprisingly, involved loans or other debt, but he wasn’t paying it, and after one expensive letter from my lawyer to his, I realized I would be better off somehow managing the debt myself until I could find my way to a divorce.

This is a problem, when you have more bills than income.

Immediately after he left, I found myself with two cars: the first, a beat-up old Subaru that didn’t look like much, but was paid for and probably only approaching its automotive half-life. The second was its replacement, a large luxury SUV that we had bought only a few months earlier – which was not even close to paid for in spite of a large down payment. Since his departure was so abrupt, decisions were made quickly: The Subaru belonged to me outright and was sold, with the proceeds used to hire my lawyer. The SUV was jointly titled, so I paid the large monthly bill and figured it would all be worked out when we finally sat down and divided things up.

Except that took a lot longer than anyone expected it to, and so, after months of large car payments, one expensive letter,  and a couple of sobbing phone calls, my lawyer  suggested that I should go test drive a car and maybe get a value on the SUV as a trade in. It’s so new, he said, there probably won’t be much you can do about unloading it. But, go find out and I’ll call his attorney.

So one sunny Sunday, The Child and I drove a large luxury SUV up to the car dealership a minute from our house, the one that sold cute little European cars in fun colors. The SUV had every possible bell and whistle on it – DVD player, heated front and rear seats – and I surmise that this was how they heard me coming.

And they did, because what started as a test drive of a new car on a sunny morning turned into the day that would not end which gradually became the early evening in which I bought a used car – but with a lower monthly payment. No worries about my not-yet-ex-husband’s signature; they’d take care of that. No worries about driving a used, un-inspected European car; their extended warranty would cover me.

I started trying to undo the deal almost as soon as I got home. I knew I’d been taken, which was confirmed a when they called a few days later and asked me to “come back in, there’s been a problem with financing.” You can tell me a lot of lies about cars, but I know a few things about credit, what with working in the banking industry for more than 20 years, and my credit is perfect.

Great, I said, let’s undo this. Please bring the SUV up the road to my house.

They told me they’d already sold it, another story that stunk: It was not possible they’d obtained The Departed’s needed signature that quickly, and in any case, it was still listed on their website.

The financing issue went away, as did the promise to make repairs, and the return phone calls from their mechanic.

I panic, and call my own mechanic, who inspects the vehicle. It’s fine, he says, as Minis go, but these cars are nothing but problem after expensive problem.

You are going to regret this car.

After The Departed left, I got to know The Cleaning Lady. I started to come downstairs and chat with her when she came – just for a while – and she would ask after The Child, and offered me support in a hundred different ways, starting with testifying, if it came to that. She was understanding when I reduced her hours, due to my decreased budget, and I was glad to have one less thing I had to do.

Our needs changed, with the new household configuration, and so although she’d originally been requested to do the laundry, I asked her to please stop, and focus her efforts elsewhere. I could see dust in the formal dining room, at times, but more importantly, she wasn’t any good at laundry. I didn’t mind losing a couple of sweaters to the dryer – they were cashmere, but they were also gifts from The Departed in sizes much too large – but I did mind seeing white items gradually turn grayish blue from being washed together with jeans. The Child begins to get interested in clothes, and I show her how to wash her new sweaters on the gentle cycle and lay them flat to dry – and then I would have to stop the Cleaning Lady from picking up the sweater and the towel and tossing both into the dryer.

You don’t dry them, I explained. They’re wool.

Okay, she’d say, and then hang them, damp, in the closet.

I gave up the repeated discussion and told the Child to dry her sweaters in the guest room, and shut the door so the Cleaning Lady wouldn’t see them. Every so often, I reminded the Cleaning Lady that we really didn’t need our laundry done for us anymore, but unless I reminded her on a specific visit, it got done anyway. I found it was easier to simply do the laundry before she visited, although it didn’t always work with my schedule and sometimes resulted in me having to rush before she visited.

The dishes sometimes don’t seem clean, and I discover why after one of her visits: She has no idea how to load a dishwasher, placing tall items so that they are perfectly positioned to prevent the sprayer arm from moving, but always being sure to use the heated dry cycle I’ve requested she never use, so that everything that wasn’t washed off is securely baked on. I avoid addressing this – I’m a little sensitive about giving lectures on how to load dishwashers, having been the recipient of so many. The Child decides to talk about it with the Cleaning Lady, and tells me later, She argued with me and then said she’d teach me the right way, but I was trying to show her.

I know I need to do something about it, but I feel guilty: she’s a war refugee, putting daughters through college. Her grandson has leukemia.

My father says, Stop feeling guilty.

I point out that it’s his fault I’m genetically inclined to nonstop feelings of guilt.

She should probably get a different kind of job, says The Child.

I am sure this is true, but her English isn’t the best, and I feel bad all over again, until I start my spring cleaning early, and locate the other one of my two nice, fluffy, white, post-divorce towels, buried at the back of my linen closet. I hang it in my bathroom, next to the matching towel, the one that doesn’t match any more, since it has acquired the same grey pallor of every other piece of white fabric in our house.

It’s a Target towel, hardly expensive, but the thought of replacing these two nearly-new towels rankles me as much as the thought of having to look at the two of them hanging together, not matching, and neither of these things bothers me as much as the irritation I feel about having raced around trying to avoid just this sort of thing, in vain. Cleaning before the cleaner gets there, out of necessity rather than vanity.

And suddenly it’s not about feelings, it’s about math: what it is costing me annually to have my whites turned grey and my food baked on my dishes and things put back not where they belong and furniture chipped along the floor from where she slams into it with the vacuum despite my repeated requests to please, please be careful not to hit things.

So The Child and I make a deal: She will help with the cleaning, and this year – for the first time in several years – we will take a vacation somewhere special with the savings.