Sisters, cars and tiresome persistence
This is something of a rant and something of a declaration of finality.

My sister, as many of you already know, lives in Cape Town and studies at UCT. For the past few months, since she got her driver's license, she has been bugging me about my car. Well, technically it's my mother's car but I have had more or less exclusive use of it for several years.

The "debate" has raged back and forth since then:

Sister: You need to get a new car so I can have Mom's.
Me: I will be getting a new car at the end of the year. You can have Mom's then.
Sister: But I need it now. I saw a nice second-hand golf for R20k...
Me: I'm not going to buy a second-hand golf. The plan has always been to give you the car at the end of the year.
Sister: But I need it now! You don't know what it's like to always have to ask friends to take you places!
Me: If you need to go anywhere when I'm not at work, phone me. I'm quite happy to drive you around.
Sister: That's OK, I don't need you to drive me. But I need a car.
Mom: Enough! You can have the car next year! Drop it!

Well, now she has moved out of res and into a house with a few other people. Except she apparently neglected to check whether the house was near the campus bus route. So now she wants me give her my car and make another plan until the end of the semester. "Just a week", although the UCT calendar puts the end of the semester at the end of the month and then exams are after that. If I can't spend the time without a car, I can always buy another one...

At the end of today's phone call, after I had patiently explained that I actually do need a car for more than just work <-> home and that buying a car this week isn't an option, she hung up on me. Apparently seeing reason is unbearably frustrating.

I can see things from her side: It isn't easy to be independent and have a thriving social life when you don't have a car. Especially if your big brother is in the same city and has a car you believe should rightfully be yours. Especially if said big brother has no social life to speak of (his geeky friends and computery meetings don't count) and only needs a car because he doesn't want to stay with some cousins who live within walking distance of work. Especially if he can afford a shiny new car (or failing that, a crappy old car) of his own so you can have the one that should rightfully be yours. Even if you have nowhere to park said car. Even if you're going to be out of town for a couple of months and have nowhere to leave it during that time. Big brother can look after it, can't he?

OK, perhaps that wasn't entirely fair. But I'm getting to the point where I'm going to just stop answering her calls. I'm happy to help out, but I'm not going to give in to her every whim and I'm not going to rearrange my life to bail her out of whatever messes she digs herself into by not thinking before she rearranges her life.

My sister is not getting the car until she's back in Cape Town next year. That will give me time to save enough for a good deposit on a nice new car and will avoid the problem of where to park it when she's away. It's also what the original plan was and what I've been basing my life-rearranging decisions around. End of story.