When I Need A Pick Me Up, by my friend Ryan King

Tuesday, May 8, 2007

Days of Delinquency

(Originally 8/17/06)

I'm going to call out from work today, like I did yesterday. It always makes me feel bad, like I'm plotting a lie. Because I could go to work and not die, this I know. But yesterday, my throat was sore. It might have been a planted posthypnotic from Alex's Journal, (who by the way is also My Hero. He just doesn't happen to wear black and blue shinies). But I had to deliver a packet to a site yesterday and was running out of gas, and payday isn't until tomorrow, and I'm overdrawn again in both my accounts this time (but payday, again, is tomorrow) and so I just returned home yesterday and blogged and City of Heroed and soap-opera'ed slightly. To add to it, my boss is on vacation and I'm so-called running the department (after all, I AM the Assistant Director, and how cool STILL is that?)

But I feel better if I stay home, even though I woke up on time today and I have clean clothes, and I have 18 dollars in savings which I'm going to close out because it's Bank of America and I opened it to "Save The Change" but all the money I've paid in overdraft fees has killed any advantage "Saving" some dang "Change" would EVER have given me in two lifetimes, so that's what I'm going to do. I'm staying home again.

And I typed all this before I made the call because still, it feels wrong. I think this touches back on the days when I might not have felt well enough to go to school, but my mother would tell me that if I missed the school bus, I'd have to walk, but "my ass" was GOING to that SCHOOL. Ahhh, a mother's love. (Is that fair? What's a working mom to do when her kid wants to stay home alone and she has to go to work? Take a day off and tend to the kid? Naaaahhhh...!)

Any way, I just did it. I called out from one expectant site. Now I think I'll cal my boss and tell him, even though he's on vacation.

In the financial realm, I may be overdrawn, but according to my calculations, this week will be the last time. Having paid off one creditor and looking at the shrinking balances of the others, my monthly expenses are now below the amount of one paycheck--and I get two paychecks per month! I shall leave the Bank of America checking account open, but draft no more payments out of it. Everything shall be taken care of out of my HSBC account (which I opened when I lived in NYC because you couldn't sneeze without seeing one in the big App), and Bank of America will act as a savings account even though it's checking--So when it's built up enough for a need, (like a car repair, loan buyout settlement, or a similiar emergency, I can write a check). The HSBC also has a savings which I opened to get a free night's stay at a Marriott of my choice. But I will use that as a savings as well--probably for the Pay Back The Personal Friends fund, as opposed to the Official Creditors fund.

The free night's stay required some tough patience because it took them a month to send the 'application' and then, you had to send the application in 21 days in advance of where you wanted to stay. That was all just fine though, because I'm going to use that night, and add on a few more, during the week of my birthday. And I'm going to stay in NYC, and I'm going to change the name of the blog again to reflect the number of my new age (something very clever, which I'm sure you, my astute readers, will have already determined it) although the web address should be staying the same.

That's right, I'm anticipating a better life and making plans to do so.

No more apologies.

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