in which we realize our life isn't so crappy as we once feared...

My roommate has been having car troubles for quite a bit of time, and today was a final blow. I had to go pick her up off the side of the road b/c her car died again and she absolutely could not get it started. So I took her back to work then, and then we went to IHOP, because her grandparents and father live off a stretch of the new SH130 and they finally got an offer that matched what her grandparents were asking for the property. Except for some reason today her grandfather decided he wanted more money. They are already getting an exorbitant amount of money for their property with this offer, yet he decided he needed more. My roommate needs a new car, and her grandparents will not give the money for it. It is the most amazing, strangest thing I have ever heard. I know my own grandmother has plenty of money, she has invested well, the man she is married to now invests well, but they give money to many good causes and I know if I were in this position of needing a new car she would not hesitate to help. My roommate's grandparents' scruples make me realize how fortunate I am, even with all the insanity and weirdness that is my family. How money can do that to people is amazing. Incredible, and horrible. How having more than you could ever hope to spend and that still not being enough, and yet you will not share it with anyone, not even your own flesh and blood when they are in need. The money is useless as it is, and they are in no shape to go on any extravagant vacations or spend the money in any way, and yet they sit on it and pay lawyers and stock people too much money when they don't need to, and they allow the government to take too much of it in taxes, because they have become so greedy or whatever unexplicable malady has befallen them that they would rather sit on it and watch it rot than see it put to good use and actually do something benevolent for their family members. How something like that can happen I do not understand, nor does my roommate, and she suffers while this happens. It is like her grandparents are no longer people, something else has taken hold of them. And thus I realize the blessings I have, and work to embrace them and learn and grow.