This morning I awoke in a pool of sweat, shaking and more tired than when I went to bed. I don’t dream very often. Well not that I remember when I wake up that is. But last night I did and it was still a vivid memory when I awoke. It was horrible. I have spent most of this morning trying to forget it. But the lingering fear of the dream can’t be shaken.
It all goes back to the fact that Red and I were simultaneously fired from our jobs almost 2 months ago. Why you ask? We were told it was because we refused to lie to our customers to make sales. It is a long story and perhaps I will put it all into words here one of these days, but right now I can’t find the words to explain. Suffice it to say that we worked for an online travel company.
As I was saying, we were fired almost 2 months ago. We did have enough cash in the bank to allow us to get by for a while, but that has all gone. On the 1st of Aug I put our bank in the hole for almost $300.00. That was so we could pay the rent. That was the last we had. One bright spot in this nightmare is I have been hired again. I go to work for T-Mobile on the 20th of Aug. Now while I am stoked about this. We still have to live until I get my 1st paycheck. That won’t be for another 2 weeks after my start date.
Red, the love of my life is not doing well either. She now thinks of herself as the “Great Unhire-able”. We have both spent almost every waking business hour since our dismissal searching for new jobs. I was lucky as I had applied to T-Mobile several months ago but shot myself in the foot during an interview. I had impressed the people enough that I was given another chance to apply a few months later. I was careful with my words from that point on and managed to make it all the way through the hiring processes.
Red on the other hand has not been so lucky. It almost seems like she has been blackballed from the employment arena in our town. We don’t know why. But no matter where she goes or who she speaks to, no one will hire her. At this point I have no idea how to console her. I try but most times fail miserably.
I LOVE you Red. More than I can ever tell you. You are the single most important thing in my life. Now and Forever.
We like most people live from paycheck to paycheck. We have no insurance, no savings (what little we had just went out the door to pay rent) and we have run out of options.
A lot of this can be attributed to the Ice Storm of Jan 2007. It crippled us financially. I don’t know of you have ever gone for 16 days without power, or not. But let me tell ya it ain’t no picnic. Especially when the temperatures outside are below zero.
I honestly thought that we might die.
I have served in the Navy and did a small stint in the Arctic Circle. It was every bit as cold in my house during that time as it was in the North Pole. No power, no money, no food, well the food we had was all but useless. No place to cook it. And anyway most of it was in an ice cooler in the back yard in a solid block of ice. Yeah, No power equals no refrigerator which equals back to nature for keeping your food safe. As long as we could keep the wild (not the pets) outside animals away from it.
We had pets to care for as well as ourselves. 3 dogs and 3 cats. They almost died during that storm. Luckily some close friends (who didn’t have power either) had an old gas heater and allowed us to bring the cats to their house to stay for the duration of the icy hell. But the dogs had to remain home, in the freezing temperatures. Not because our friends didn’t want them. But because they already had 4 dogs of their own as well as several cats. It would not have been pretty if we had tried to bring them all. So we were grateful for them keeping our cats. I know in my heart that if they had not done so the cats would surely have died.
But the boys dug in together and made it through. We piled blankets in the main bedroom for them to huddle in and made sure they had water and food twice a day. Water was the hardest. Everything was frozen. We had to thaw chunks of water out over Sterno cans to give to them. But as I said they survived. We are all happily back together at home now and that storm is a horrible memory of the past. But that all leads to where we are now.
I know that was a long roundabout way to get back to here. But it was just a little filler information on how Red and I have had to live for the last several months. We were still trying to get caught up financially from the Ice Storm when we got dumped by the company we worked for. So now we are almost back to square one again and going down fast. I know I have a job now and I look forward to it. But I don’t know how we are going to live until that first check. And even then rent will be due again ( 2 wees late by then) and we are so low on food right now it is sickening.
Oh and one other thing I forgot to mention in that little life update. Our car got hit during that storm. One of the wonderful people from out of town/state that came here to help with the Ice Storm damage pulled a hit and run on Red. It was one of those big ass tree trimming trucks that pulled out in front of her and made a left hand turn from the right hand lane on a road that was pure ice. Needless to say Red could not stop. Fuck, Mario Andretti could not have done anything to stop the inevitable crash. We didn’t think the damage at the time was severe. Damn plastic cars. So I wasn’t too worried. Trying to stay alive was more important.
But it seems the damage was more than we knew. 2 months later Red was driving the car and heard a loud “Crack” and the car refused to turn after that. We found out the front rack was completely shot. And given the age of the car it would have cost substantially more to repair the car than the car was worth. Not that we had a fucking penny to repair it anyway. But again friends jumped in. The people that had kept out cats during the storm had an old beater car in their driveway that they never used. So they pretty much just gave it to us. We just had to get the title straightened out and get it legal. Well that costs money as well and we just didn’t have the $300+ it was going to cost to get it done yet. So I took the tags from the old car (we junked it and got a whole $100 for it) and put them on the car we just got. Problem is the tags were also out of date by now. But I thought hey, I can do this for a few weeks because Red and I have this wonderful new job with a travel company. Pays real well and I can get the car legal in a few weeks. Reality was not so kind though. As I said above we lost that job and went further into the financial hole.
I decided then that I had had enough. Fuck this shit. I had no other way. I was going to drive the car with expired tags and a fucked title until I got a job and could get it all fixed. Yeah. Even from my teenage years the cops have always lived in my trunk. I do something illegal and they were there in a heartbeat. They had to come from my trunk. Needless to say I got a ticket the other day. The cop was nice and listened to the story I have stated here. But said he was sorry. He still had to give me a ticket. What he could do however was this. Since all the citations he could have written me added up to over $400 he would only write me one for $70. Ok, I can deal with that. I was in the wrong after all, guilty as charged. But where the fuck can I get the cash to pay the ticket, when I don’t even have the cash to pay for food?
Man I am sorry. To anyone that reads this, I am rambling I know. I am just at my wits end and have no one to turn to for help.
BUT !!!! I WILL SURVIVE… Some how I / WE will make it to fight another day.
Oh yeah, the dream that this all started with… Because of all this shit I dreamed of us literally being evicted from our home and losing everything and that Red and I and our animals were homeless. So much for the fucking American Dream. It’s a fucking lie. It doesn’t exist anymore. Not since the 50′s. Yeah I know you can say that dream was not that frightening. Real easy to say sitting at home with your bills paid and a good job. Put yourself in my place. I know a lot of people are in my place or close to it. I know I am not the only one that is scared of this today.
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