Bated breath

***EDITED BELOW***

Just so you know, the oven DOES still work, but (despite cleaning) smells kind of weird. Burnt, charred, what you will.

So.

I'm waiting, on absolute tenterhooks.

Every day brings a new round of nasty letters - direct debits that have been refused (tax office, loans, internet connection, mobile phone, mortgage), threats of being blackballed from all French financial institutions for the next 5 years, bla, bla, bla - and I now dread the arrival of the postman. When he actually rings the doorbell, I don't answer (if he rings it means he has registered mail or a parcel; I'm not expecting any parcels and don't want to know about any registered mail. It can only be bad news).

I'm not allowed to use either of my credit cards (private account, professional account), even though my professional account is only (as I write) € 42 overdrawn.

The credit regroupment place can't put my dossier through (the dossier that would group all my current loan repayments into one single (and lower) payment, spread over more time) because I need to either get my dad to send me some papers showing I can in fact repay D. the money he put into buying the flat, or include D. in the dossier (as co-owner of the flat) and be rejected outright because of his even more precarious financial status.

I have asked my dad to send me the documents I need, but am too embarrassed to say a) why I need them (I've said it's for the solicitor so I can get the repayment crap under way. This isn't a total lie, just not the whole truth either) and b) how damn urgently I need them. So he's dragging his feet, being old and dithery. Not his fault, I know, but annoying as hell.

The Science University owes me € 1,200 (for first semester teaching), promised at the end of January but most likely not going to appear till the end of March. One translation client owes me € 1,400 (invoices dated October 2011, for work done essentially in August and September), another owes me € 1,500. Many other clients owe me smaller sums of money.

And no one. Absolutely NO ONE is paying me anything.

My finances are about to implode, I'm stressed beyond belief and totally distraught at the idea that I do so much work, paid at decent rates (in theory) yet remain so precarious. I can't do grocery shopping - no credit cards - so have to go to my local Spar and buy (over-priced) stuff every other day or so using the cash my dad gave me at Christmas. I can't do anything, go anywhere.

This situation is killing me. It's so fucking unfair. I HAVE the money - on other people's acounts. And they aren't paying. I've accepted a monster translation job (and have no idea how on earth I'm going to manage to get the work done) just because it'll pay a huge amount of money, hopefully in four installments, starting mid-March. I could probably clear just about all my debts (apart from the money I owe D., I mean) if people actually paid me.

Instead, I'm going to have problems with my mortgage, the tax office and various other establishments because my direct debits aren't going through. My internet connection will be cut off, my fax already has been.

Fuck 2012.

***EDITED TO ADD***

Just got off the phone with my dad and he's going to try and scan and email the documents I need tomorrow morning (bearing in mind he's never scanned and attached a document to an email in his life), so maybe things will start to happen at last... Fingers crossed!