Tragedy Strikes

Five hundred dollars later...

The other day I was looking at a house that my partner was interested in buying, a beautiful 1920s house up in the hills close to downtown Columbus. In fact, he put an offer on it that day, shortly after I gave him my report, and the good news is the offer was accepted. This has solved our on-going problem of finding a suitable house for Cliff to buy when he sells his house in New Mexico. And in fact, also, he has sold that house. We've had a series of good steps being accomplished in his work to move here. We're each going to have a house, because we're not ready to merge our cats—all three calicoes, but my two girls are young whippersnappers and Julia (our long-term cat who now resides with Cliff) is a senior citizen. We do not feel that she would welcome the young-uns, and we don't want to make her feel displaced.

Anyway, when I was ready to leave and go take a look at another house, my car would not start. I called a towing service (real nice young man who grew up here and had quite a few good things to say about Columbus) took me to the car care place I've used before, called Precision Tune and Auto Care, located up on Highway 45 next to the local Applebee's. I was there a couple of hours before they determined that it was the starter, but that they would not be able to get it until the next day, which left me needing a rental car. That turned out to be fairly inexpensive because of my insurance coverage and I got a discount.

But the starter and sundries, along with labor at the car repair place was not cheap. I didn't expect it to be, so add that to the rental car, and I was out over $500. It was not really a "tragedy" in the classical sense of drama, but it was more than a simple inconvenience.

Once again, I felt I was treated well and fairly by all concerned here in this beautiful, friendly, and busy small town of 24,000. At least I can feel spring coming on as February wanes. By May, Cliff should be here, and we can continue our lives together. He will have a beautiful house to enjoy in his post retirement, a chance to destress after several long years of a thousand cuts.

WCBI Television in Columbus, Mississippi, provides a short history of Columbus's very own university, established in 1884, the first university for women in the state. It is now co-ed: