There's nothing here to collect...

So, let me start by admitting, I know this is really all my fault.

I took out all these loans myself, with my mother as a reluctant co-signer, in order to continue attending a college I neither could afford nor particularly liked.  I've always been terrified of transitions; this last week I spent a whole day on the verge of tears after returning from my parents' house to my apartment after a ten-day holiday visit.  Moving away to college was exponentially more difficult, and the idea at the beginning of my sophomore year that I might have to return home and consider a community college or state university was unfathomable to me.  I blindly did whatever it was I had to in order to stay, repeatedly, for the next three years.  Unfortunately this meant tens of thousands of dollars worth of student loans.  Close to $65,000, to be exact.

And, as it turns out, I couldn't pay them.  As it turns out, a bachelor's in psychology isn't the golden ticket to prosperity that it's made out to be, I'm sorry to have to tell you, and after rent and food and gas and cell phone bills my social-services paycheque was up in smoke, so to speak.

Now I'm waitressing, trying to go back to school, and these loans have made their way into the hands of a particularly unscrupulous collection agency.  Yesterday they demanded $32,500, and on Wednesday they're going to take "further action" if they don't receive it.  Wednesday as in tomorrow.