car juggling

in november jack sold his saturn to buy a dodge durango. he had always disliked the saturn and we decided that if he could sell a car (the saturn) and buy something else and not have to pay any more money, that he was welcome to do so. boy did i eat my words. he bought a not shiny black, loud, tall, manly dodge durango. after a few months he realized just how much gas a v8 uses and listed it on craigslist (for over twice what we paid for it). while we were away in myrtle beach 3 people called and were interested. so we arranged to have some people come by sunday and look at it. being that it was sunday and no banks were open, the interested people purchased western union money orders. they then drove off with the car (although we still have the title). that same day (valentine's day) as we were looking for a car to replace jack's we saw an ad for someone wanting a van in our price range. our plan was, at some point, to sell the ford van (i have always hated it) and put some tax return money with it and buy something better. so, we respond to the ad telling them the van's specs. they call literally 5 minutes later and want to come out and look at it. keep in mind that this is about an hour after we have sold jack's car. we only have one car sitting in our drive way... so we run to clean it. they come out and look at it, they seem interested and tell us that they will think about it and call us back the next day. now, on to monday. we go to food lion (where the durango people bought the WU money orders) to cash them. we then learn that no one cashes them, except one pawn shop... and they charge a 5% fee to do so. we then take them into the bank. the bank deposits them and will hold them for ELEVEN business days. so we have this money, but it is tied up in the bank. and we have ONE car. in the mists of finding all of this about WU, the van couple calls and tells us that they want to buy the van. um great. now we have ZERO cars. jack has, by this time found a car that he likes... but again, our money is tied up at the bank. so our plan... have the van people and the car guy meet jack at the bank at the same time. get the money from the van people and give the money to the car guy. all the while signing two titles over to the various parties.
so that is where we are now. jack got another car (a really nice mazda millenia) and our money is tied up at the bank. luckily for us, we get our tax return money on friday. so until that i point, i sit car-less. ahhh the car juggling.
and note to self... never use western union money orders... they are easy to buy but IMPOSSIBLE to cash.

sorry that was long and picture-less!