That Time Of The Month…

No..

Not THAT time… hasn’t been THAT time in a LONG time ..

I’m talking about rent.

Ugh.

You know.. I guess it could be worse. While my landlord can be a real dick sometimes.. most times.. when push comes to shove he’s tolerable.

He doesn’t bother us.. we don’t bother him.. everybody’s happy.

So back some forever ago when we thought we were moving in November, we gave our two month notice. At the time, the King of Idiocy (that would be Chief) told me that the landlord was holding the last month’s rent and security.

I didn’t find out until mid-January that he was actually holding two months security so we owed him 1/2 a month for December (I had already given him 700.00 already for December) and for January (1400.00).

When it turned out that we were going to have to stay here for longer then either of us planned or wanted.. AND knowing that we were getting our income tax checks in by the end of February.. I called on January 23rd and left him a message stating that I would be sending him the money I owed him for December ( in two 350.00 money orders about a week apart) and that we would be sending him January’s and February’s rent as soon as Chief got his income tax check in mid-February.

I followed up that voice mail with an email with screen shots of the amount of his refund and estimated direct deposit date via Turbo Tax.

I also told him that we would be staying on, if that was okay with him, and explained that Chief got a job.. yada yada yada.

I never heard back from him. No phone call. No email reply. Nothing.

So on January 25th, I mailed a 350.00 money order.

On February 2nd, I mailed another 350.00 money order.

Again.. didn’t hear anything from them about nothing.

Today I get a phone call from the man himself saying to call the office. Immediately followed by a text message saying that it was VERY URGENT that I call the office.

And this made my heart race and my bowels loose.

What was “so very urgent”? He obviously knew about the financial time line..  if not, he would have called sooner, right? Was there some bullshit fine that the borough imposed because of all the snow we had and their officer who literally comes around with a ruler to make sure the sidewalks are clear enough? Or maybe it was that one soda can that blew onto our back lawn from somewhere else? Did we get a fine for that? Did he have another renter? Was he selling the place? Did he intend to evict us? What THE FUCK??

So it took me awhile to get my guts in order to call but I finally did..

He answered the phone.. told him who I was.. and that I got a message to call the office.

WHERE’S MY MONEY was his reply.

And not in a very nice tone either..

It caught me off guard.. according to the guideline, we still had another week before the income tax check came.

So I said, “.. wait, you go the 700.00 right?”

I hear him ask the woman in his office, “.. did you get the 700.00?”

I hear her say no.. I hear him tell me know.. and now I went into full out panic because I mailed those money orders and I NEVER mail the rent.. I always drive the 26 miles round trip just to make sure it gets there and didn’t get screwed up in the mail.

Now, I really go into full out panic and he tells me to talk to the woman.. pull out the money order receipts and go over the dates. She got both of them.. I tell her about the timeline.. yep.. she knows about it .. THEN WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU CALLING???

She apologizes and confirms the dates on when we’re expecting the tax refund.. I also tell her that we’re probably going to include March’s rent.. it’s going to keep them at bay and take pressure off us .. and she was all fine. whatever.

Fine? Whatever? You just took ten fucking years off my life and all you can say is fine.. whatever??

I appreciate the fact that he’s kinda-sorta-has-no-choice working with us.. but my word, man.. can get brush up on your info before dialing the phone?

I can’t wait to get out of this freakin’ place…

Reality Check

You know.. I have a habit of saying that I need to get paid to live my life.

I’m serious.

A check would really, really, REALLY be helpful right now!

Anyway.. ok.. so…

Reality Check.

The real kind.

WARNING: Nothing you are about to read is made up. I can assure you that I am not sitting up in my double king sized bed surrounded by over spoiled lap dogs and tons of pillows getting annoyed by my assistant who keeps bursting into my sanctuary to take calls from various people listed on the Who’s Who of The World.

I so wish.

Anyway..

So we’re home from our road trip and I’m absolutely dreading Tuesday. Why? Because Tuesday is when my bank processes every transaction from the weekend. And even though I’ve been literally squeaking because I am very, very cautious when spending money since we closed the store we completely had to trash my account because of the Road Trip.

I was due for an unemployment check on Wednesday.. but it’s the next to the last one so this was NOT a good time to trash the finances. Necessary, of course. Even though we didn’t spend anything we absolutely didn’t have to.. we still spent more then we thought we would.

Still, I didn’t think it was going to be ALL that bad.. I thought that we were covered because I wrote a check for the $191.00 title/tag fee for Consuela. Remember I said that I could float that because by the time it was deposited it wouldn’t clear until Wednesday when my unemployment came in?

Yea.

No.

When I dared enough to take a peek at my account online, the check had already cleared. What? Wait… WHAT?

I know for a fact that my bank doesn’t have a local branch but  I guess the notary had some type of electronic gizmo that processes checks the same way one would process credit or debit cards. I know they exist and really, in this day and age why wouldn’t you have a gizmo like that when you accept checks?

So now my account was going to get hit with way more over draft charges then I originally thought and at 35.00 a pop, I’d be lucky if I was going to be able to remain in the black when my UC check came in.

Mind you.. I am not pointing blame at anybody else or playing a violin. I take full responsibility for the things that I did to make my account a mess… I just didn’t realize how much of a mess. Fact is, after all was said and done, I had around 400.00 after my UC came through.

Ok.. so not sooo bad, right?

Honestly, it wouldn’t be except that upon returning home from the road trip I found out that I had to pay the 128.00 cable bill before the 14th to avoid shut-off. I have to keep this current for 2 reasons.. one, Bubba and the whole cyber school thing and two, we are going to need service when we move and if I keep the bill current then there isn’t an issue with just changing the address.

I also received a 3 day shut off notice for the water. That’s 124.00.

So ok.. I’m not exactly jumping through hoops here but you know, at least I have enough to pay the cable and water and we’ll just have to make due because really, what ELSE is there to do?

And then I receive a call from my landlord.

I still owe him 675.00 for December’s rent and have told him that he will get that money. I’m not trying to beat him out of it or skip town or whatever. I may not have it RIGHT NOW but I filed my tax return so I will be getting a little something back (I had requested taxes taken from my UC) .. and Chief will be getting a nice return back but we can’t file his until the end of the month because the IRS hasn’t released one of the forms he needs yet.

He asked me where we were moving and I told him, honestly, I didn’t know. My fragile house of cards had collapsed and the only thing that I could do was leave it up to God. He asked if we would have to stay in the house another month. I told him that I still owed him money for December .. how could I do that?

Then he busts out with ‘.. and for January.”

Wait.

WHAT?

Apparently, the money that had been put up front when Chief had moved into this place was 1st month and 2 months security. This was NOT the information Chief gave me.. he told me that he put up 1st month / Last month / security.

Mind you, he got this house before I was ever in the picture and truthfully, I’m sure HE wasn’t the one who handled the transaction.. only signed where he was told to..

So now we owe our land lord ANOTHER 1400.00 for January and he told me he’d give me a call sometime next week to come see the house. Wonderful.

And it’s all getting a little too much for me to shoulder.

When I said that our little fragile house of cards had fallen, I wasn’t kidding and I wasn’t trying to get sympathy. It’s exactly the way it is.

The end of the month is fast approaching and we have no where to go.

West Virginia may be a probability somewhere in the future but it isn’t now. Even if the property was flat, it’s going to take more money then we’re going to have to build a foundation, finish paying off the double wide and paying to move it from where it’s at to where it’s going to go.

I ask you.. what the HELL were we thinking??

I’ll ask you again just for the effect.. WHAT THE HELL WERE WE THINKING???

This whole journey from the day we closed the store has been nothing but us putting out money for places and things that never panned out..

And it’s more then a little discouraging .. especially because we are no closer to finding a place to move only now we have a lot less money to do it with..

It’s making my head spin.. keeping me up at night and doing things to my innards that are better left undiscussed.

Year ago.. when I was a kid.. there was a tele-movie on one night about a woman who found herself homeless. She did everything “right” in her life but I think her house caught on fire and for some reason it wasn’t insured or whatever .. that quick, she found herself homeless and it scared the hell out of me .. the thought that things could change in the snap of a finger ..

I thought about the movie (I think it starred Christine Laihti) in the middle of the night recently and it was all I can do to make the waterfalls keep from drenching my pillow.

Do I have the option of moving back in with my mom or with my brother? Of course.. I do have a way. “I” have a way.. but that would mean leaving my family .. and as much as I feel like I want to leave them sometimes, I really don’t.. and I wouldn’t.. not in these circumstances.

The boys could go with the Crack Whore.. no biggie. But my main concern is the dogs and cats. My mother would freak and my sister in law is high allergic. The other option is to move Conseula back to PA and possibly put it on my brother in laws property until we can get our shit together.

So I worry.. worry hard.. count down the minutes until we have to leave this house.. and then what?

Dunno .. but I do have faith.

As ridiculous as it may sound to those of you that don’t .. I know that God will take care of us and put us where we need to be when we need to be there. And while He does provide, no one said it would be easy ..

Bad Boys.. Bad Boys.. Watcha Gonna Do When They Come For You

“You” meaning “Me”

If you search around this blog, you will find previous posts about the obscene amount of parking tickets I get on Street Sweeping day. That’s because my house is on the point of three intersecting streets and every bloody day is Street Sweeping day and I still.. after three years.. have yet to understand which side gets swept on which day at which times.. especially because apparently, this information is tribal fucking legend with no signs posted for the memory challenged.

On the day the Street Sweeper comes around, the truck is followed by a cop car and if you’re parked where you shouldn’t BE parked, they write you up on a blaze orange envelope and stick it in your windshield.

The cost is 15.00.

I used to pay them as soon as I got them before.. before I was laid off.. before the shop started to tank.. before I somehow became responsible for paying (No Longer.. Maybe) Weed’s criminal fines.

And sometimes I wouldn’t even GET them.. either the wind took them.. or one of the bratty neighborhood kids took them off.. sometimes Chief would take them off and I wouldn’t know about it until I got a summons in the mail.

A few times I put the cash in the blaze orange envelope to be deposited into the special mail box at the courthouse down the street from the store and on the way to Bubba’s school and the Crack Whore’s apartment.. but somehow those little envelopes just never made it in there.

That stopped REAL quick.

So Tuesday, Chief had cut his finger really bad. He couldn’t be around food and since yet another cable/internet tech was due at the house to fix our shit, I told him to just go ahead up to the house and wait for them. It made no sense for him to be at the shop when he couldn’t do anything and it is a very rare day when he isn’t in the store from sun up until well past sun down.

See! That was me being nice.

Anyway.. what I don’t find out until the next morning was not only was the cable guy there, but the constable was there.

To arrest me.

For unpaid Street Sweeping tickets.

In the amount of $228.00.

I had twenty four hours to handle my shit .. well, less by time Chief told me and I freaked out.

I didn’t freak out because the constable was there.. I freaked out because THIS IS NOT ME .. I don’t let shit like this go.. I always paid what I needed to pay when I needed to pay it.

Until I met him.

Did you ever hear of regret breeding contempt?

Yea.

Almost there.

Especially because Chief PROMISED me that he’d have money for me to take up to the courthouse by the end of the day and he didn’t. He had half of it in the store’s bank account and was REAL reluctant to withdraw it for me.. and even though that’s bad enough.. I really saw RED when he said, “.. you’re going to give it to me back, right?”

Lord Jesus how I didn’t murder the man right there.

Instead.. I bitched him out like he’s never been bitched out before and I pulled out every fucking ace from my sleeve regarding how many times I’ve given him money for the store and he’s never given it back to me.

I believe I even though something across the store but in all honesty, I was so white hot angry that I don’t remember.

Because, you see, what I found out about this man over the years is that not only is he not good with money.. but he’ll do whatever it takes to get what he needs. Sound familiar? He’d be the male Crack Whore if it weren’t for the fact that it’s about his “needs” not his “wants”.

That might be a little too harsh but just writing this is getting my blood boiling. So I apologize in advance for sounding pissed off.. especially something that happened a week ago.

The store is behind on the rent .. business has been down.. and my unemployment check can only be stretched so far. I’m not going to NOT pay the house rent because the store has empty shelves. Sorry, not gonna happen.

The last time the electricity got cut, I told him that THAT was never going to happen again.. and either he better call up the electric company and work something out OR get used to living like the olden days because I wasn’t going to borrow money from anybody to take care of a bill that he didn’t take care of because he needed the money for the store.

He is working his ass off to get over the hump .. another deli opened about a block away which is killing business .. even opening up on Sundays again to make extra money.. but he’s just not business savvy. The boy can cook his ass of.. but other then that, he’s virtually useless.

So that whole attitude and OH MY GOD I CAN’T PAY MY FINE BECAUSE I’M PAYING YOUR FUCKING SONS statement didn’t really make for a happy time in the store but you know what? He gave me that check.. I paid the fines and had the warrant lifted.. and now (No Longer.. Maybe) Weed is on his own.. the shop is on it’s own.. it’s either going to sink or swim on it’s own because I’m not putting any of the personal money into it.

Whether he knows it or not.. it’s just the way it’s going to be.

Treading Water Waiting For God To Save Her

I promised I would post about the situation my cousin DeeDee is in.. and it actually :: no offense DeeDee :: feels good to talk about somebody ELSE’S problems for a change… and believe me, her’s is a doozy!

You can read about it HERE and HERE but if not, I’ll just to give you the cliff note version real quick:

Girl meets boy

Girl gets pregnant

Girl builds an addition onto boy’s mother’s house

Girl has falling out with boy’s mother and sister

Girl takes baby and moves out

Boy gets thrown out of mother’s house

Boy wins Girl back and rent a house

Overly simplified but none the less.. there it is.

Anyway.. so in the midst of my mental breakdown on Friday, DeeDee calls me stressing.

She tells me that her 1300.00 rent is due after it’s paid there will only be something like 260.00 left.. 150.00 of that is earmarked for the baby’s daycare.

This bill is due.. that bill is due.. the baby isn’t sleeping.. she’s exhausted.. the whole 9 yards.

Even though the only thing you can count on her to do is make BAD decisions, it’s her life.. she’s my cousin.. and I’m going to try and help her as much as I can.

So I tell her that she’s a single mother.. HE’S a single father of two other kids :: one of whom is autistic :: that he has custody of .. why isn’t she looking into some kind of assistance?

NOTE: I know you’re probably spitting bubble gum at your monitor and yelling HYPOCRITE at me but I never said that I was against public assistance IF WARRANTED.

I mean, heck.. even 20.00 a week for cereal would help.

But she said no. She wasn’t going to do that because after her father left her mother when DeeDee and her brother were youngsters, her mother needed to be on welfare so she doesn’t want to go that route.

Um.. okkkkkaaaayyyyyy

Since The BD only works until noon, I asked her if there was possibly the option of finding daycare in her area for half a day because then The BD can take her and it might be less then 150.00 a week

A resounding NO! First of all, she said.. she doesn’t want to leave her baby with strangers. :: Fair enough, but don’t you already leave your baby with strangers now??? :: and there was “.. no way in HELL” :: honestly, her words :: that she was going to let The BD have the kid by himself.

Now.. see.. that blows me away. He has his own kids.. he’s the baby’s father.. does anybody ELSE think that that’s the most ridiculous thing you ever heard?

Okay.. so suggestion number 2 knocked down.

I asked her if she thought about getting a job closer to her house. She drives an hour each way.. and across a state line so between gas and tolls she spending close to 200.00 a month just to get to work and back.

She said no.. because she didn’t want to lose her seniority :: come on, she’s only been there 3 years. She’s not even VESTED for God’s sake :: and beside she wouldn’t get paid what she’s getting paid now.

I don’t know how much she’s getting paid but I told her that even if she DID have to take a cut in pay, she wouldn’t have to worry about gas and a 4.00 toll a day.

Ta-Ta suggestion number 3!

The last piece of advice I had for her was to talk to her landlord and see if she could pay him bi-weekly instead of monthly. I did it with my landlord and it completely freed most of my paychecks so that I could pay down my debt without doing without necessities or having that constant “Damn, I’m broke” feeling.

She was like, “nah.. he’s not going to go for that”. I asked why wouldn’t he? I mean, he’d be guarenteed a check every two weeks instead of every month.. but she was like Nope, nope, nope.

Ciao suggestion 4!!

She kept on saying that HE :: meaning The BD :: DOESN’T GET IT but in reality SHE’S the one not “getting it”.

I learned real quick that you can’t have everything you want if you can’t pay for it and something are a higher priority then others. I understand wanting to live in a nice house.. believe me I do!! … but does that mean that I can go out and get a 2500.00 living room set? Because that’s exactly what DeeDee did.. personally, I would be too damn embarrased to do that knowing that The BD’s uncle lent them 3000.00 to move in.

The other thing is this whole house situation. DeeDee and The BD’s mother are both on the deed. The mother never paid any of the mortgage and when DeeDee and The BD started having problems :; way before the whole blow up :: they were behind on the mortgage. When DeeDee left, the house was a few days from foreclosure.

To make a long story short, The BD’s mother was suppose to refinance the house to get DeeDee’s name off of it.

So when I asked her what was going on with that, she told me :: I could actually see her finger in the air and hand on her hip!! :: Oh, well.. nothing is happening with the foreclosure and in FACT, The BDs OTHER sister had come up with the back mortgage to keep the house from foreclosing and is now coming after DeeDee for that money.

I told her she had every legal right to do that.. her name IS STILL ON THE DEED. I told her what she needed to do is get a real estate lawyer and send them a letter stating that if the refinancing isn’t completed in 60 (or 90) days, then the house is going to be sold.

That’s it. End of story.

She hemmed and hauled about that too and I wanted to reach through the phone and slap her. Believe me, I can commiserate with the best of them but I loathe people who just sit back and play the poor me violin without doing anything to help themselves.

I did feel bad for the kids because I don’t ever think little kids should have to feel their parent’s ineptitude. So I told her that I would take stuff from the shop over to her mom’s house.. to consider it a birthday gift.. and to not expect me to do it every week.

So I literally gave her some of everything I had.. including cereal and snacks for the kids and flour, sugar, juice.. everything except stuff that had to be kept cold.

I know she appreciated it.. I know that she needed it.. and I was happy to be able to help but it’s just aggravating that she isn’t seeing the forest for the trees.

The title of this post comes from a joke that really just says it all:

A man is stuck in the middle of the ocean praying for God to save him. A boat comes by to help but the man refuses saying that his God will save him. Hours later, a helicopter flies over head to rescue him but again he refuses saying that his God will save him. The man winds up drowning and when he gets to heaven the man says to God, “… why didn’t you save me?” and God says, “.. I TRIED! I sent you a boat.. a helicopter..”

So the point is, I think, that you can’t wait for that one thing you think you need to get you out of your situation. You have to be creative and take what help is being offered.

UPDATE: 06.05.09

DeeDee emailed me yesterday to tell me that the BD was able to get SSI for his autistic son. The received a 1500.oo check right away .. were due for another 700.00 at the beginning of next week and then would receive 500.00 every two weeks after that.

BD wants to NOW go on a mini-vacation to Baltimore and DeeDee is freaking out on him.

Some people never learn.