A pretty strong thunderstorm rolled through our area last night. I normally welcome a good thunderstorm, but damn, it sounded like Zeus himself was target practicing against the water tower behind our house. Seriously, there was absolutely no delay between the lightning and the thunder, which completely rattled the house each time, by the way. Selina and I were worried that the storm was going to scare Sophia; turns out she pretty much slept through it. The dogs, on the other hand, were scared out of their wits. They've never been scared of lightning and thunder, but the bolts that were striking last night were so freakin' loud that they both jumped up into the bed and were trying to hide between Selina and I.

Back in June 2006, I made one of the biggest mistakes of my life: cosigning a loan. The person I cosigned for was Margarita Depue, a mutual friend who was living with Selina and I at the time while she and Selina attended school at UT Austin. When she initially asked me to cosign for her on a tuition loan from Sallie Mae, I flat out told her no — I understand the risks of cosigning a loan and I was reluctant to be responsible for paying it back if she defaulted. After several weeks of being asked, however, I must've had an aneurysm or something because I somehow forgot all financial logic and signed the paperwork.

I guess the thing that tipped me over the edge was when she said that her mom, Maria Gutierrez, was going to also cosign the loan. My thinking was, "OK, so if Margarita doesn't make payments, at least her mom will". Margarita told me how grateful she was, how my name on her little piece of paper meant everything in the world to her and how I didn't have to worry about a thing. She even said that her mom was going to start paying the loan while she was in school.

Shit, meet fan.

In September of that year, her brothers, Eric Depue and Jonathan Depue, were arrested and charged with the murder of 57-year-old Aleta Rhodes, a retired San Antonio teacher and former neighbor of the Depues. She apparently walked in as they were robbing her home and was shot in the head during the incident. Although Margarita had previously told us that her brothers were no angels and had a history of stealing things, you couldn't help but feel bad for her. By the time she moved out in November, you could physically tell that the case against her brothers was taking a toll on her.

Flash forward to August 2007 — things between Margarita and me are fine up to this point. Then one day I get a robocall from Sallie Mae stating that they had important information about my account and needed to speak to me immediately. I sent the following email to Margarita: According to Gmail, I never received a response back, but that's not to say that she didn't call or text me the information...I honestly don't remember. I'm guessing my request went unanswered, though, because I sent another email to Margarita about 2 weeks later: I still don't think I received a response (at least not an email response), but I seem to remember that I might have received a delinquency notice in the mail from Sallie Mae that contained the account number.

So I called and talked to one of the "friendly" (haha) representatives at Sallie Mae who immediately starts demanding payment over the phone. I tell him/her that Margarita's family is going through a family crisis at the moment, to which the representative tells me that the account can be put into forbearance for a fee — Sallie Mae doesn't do anything for free, you know. As a favor to Margarita (and to keep my credit from being ruined), I went ahead and paid the forbearance fee. I follow up with a text message to her that she needed to call me regarding the loan. At some point I get in contact with Margarita and let her know about the forbearance and that it's getting pretty irritating how the loan is not being handled from her end. She promises that it will be taken care of.

Taken care of? Yeah, right...

In mid February of 2008, I once again start getting called by Sallie Mae's robocaller. A nice little delinquency notice hits my mailbox again, too. At this point I'm really, really getting annoyed... I was relieved when someone, either Margarita or her mom, finally made a payment to bring the account current. The half-dozen robocalls a day stopped as did the nasty delinquency letters. That relief only lasted two months, though, before the whole cycle started again. Entirely fed up, I gave up on emails and just started texting and leaving voicemails on Margarita's cell phone. When I failed to get any response, I turned to the only option I had left — Facebook.

After constantly being made to feel like a piece of garbage by the "helpful" (haha) people at Sallie Mae, I felt no shame at all posting several items to Margarita's wall asking her why she felt it was OK to skip out on her student loan payments. Selina finally managed to get in touch with her one day, during which time Margarita snapped at her and accused her of being cold-hearted and hateful for bothering her about some stupid loan while her family is trying to cope with the ordeal with her brothers.

That's right — she basically accused us of being assholes for expecting her to make payments on a loan that she begged me to cosign. BEGGED!

Anyway, that was the last time we heard from Margarita. She changed her phone number, closed her email address and took down her Facebook page. Searching for her by name only turns up old articles about her testimony at her brother's trial. Other than the single payment made in March of 2008, all payments to her Sallie Mae loan came from my checking account. As of today, I have paid over $4600 towards her loan...a loan that I receive no benefit from. Heck, I can't even claim the interest payments on my tax returns since neither Margarita nor her mom is a dependent of mine. And if that wasn't bad enough, I'm currently locked in a dispute with Sallie Mae over a payment they applied to someone else's account. Sigh...

We took Sophia to go meet Santa at Barton Creek Mall last Saturday. Since this is Sophia's first Christmas, we weren't quite sure how she would react to Santa -- we've seen too many pictures of crying kids not to worry about it. After standing in line for close to 2 hours, it was finally her turn...and she did great. She was mostly interested in pulling his beard and trying to snatch his glasses. Silly bug.

Almost every morning for the last few months I have noticed what I consider to be a rolling hazard on Mopac - and elderly man behind the wheel of a white Lexus SUV. He wears a Texas baseball hat, hence the term Texas Lexus. Anyway, I'm not picking on him because of his age; no, I'm picking on him because his age has obviously affected his ability to drive safely. If he hasn't already caused a wreck (either directly or indirectly) it's going to happen sooner or later.

So what does he do that I consider dangerous? For starters, he drives way, way, way below the speed limit. Traffic or no traffic, he drives about 25MPH in a 65MPH speed zone. I've been behind him before, so trust me, I'm not kidding when I say he drives 25MPH in light traffic. Second, he either lacks the mobility in his neck to shoulder check his blind spot or he's always been one of those people who just doesn't check before changing lanes. Lastly, the man consistently ignores the same "exit only" lane that takes you to the flyover from southbound Mopac to southbound 183. Pretty much every day he just keeps going straight as if the shoulder is a lane for another ¼ mile before (not checking his blind spot and) merging back into traffic. I really think he'd just keep riding that shoulder forever if it didn't end at the next entrance ramp.

You know, the first time it happened I thought to myself, "Man, someone's poor out-of-town Grandpa is lost, and if it was my Grandpa, I'd be grateful if someone let him in so that he could make it to his destination without having to navigate the interchanges to get back on Mopac." Well, after seeing him do the same thing practically every day for the last few months (and no telling how long before then), I no longer have any sympathy. In fact, I'd like to see this guy get stopped by the police and have his license taken away. I don't want to see anyone get hurt because someone is too proud to admit that they shouldn't be driving.

This is why we don't blow raspberries while our mouth is full of sweet potatoes, Sophia...