Poverty Sucks!

Some good stuff, some bad stuff:

Well, I transferred back from the Grocery side of the store to the liquor side. My former boss offered me as many hours as he could give me (I got 30 this week and I will have 36.5 next week). This is good, but it doesn't get me out of my current predicament. I have almost enough money for rent, and I am sure I can work out a deal with my landlord to pay him the balance next payday, but there is the $286 I owe Entergy, which I don't have, and won't have, until mid-March. I called them this morning to try and get an extension, but they declined, as I knew they would. They don't care. They will get their money, anyway, and, if they cut my services off, they can charge me a re-connect fee and more deposit, and thus increase their profits, the soulless bastards.

So, I am trying to locate a charity that might help me to solve this situation, but it looks grim. I wish I could borrow the money somewhere: I will have plenty of money by mid-March. I should have my tax refunds by then and I will be getting plenty of hours (guaranteed). In addition, there is an election in March that will pay me $250. If only it were March. But, it isn't. So, the grim reality is that I may spend about a month without electric or gas. Oh, well: at least I'm not sleeping out of doors and (shudder!) I do have a stockpile of MREs.

So, about 11:30, I will cruise on down to work, collect my meager earnings, and go pay what I can on my rent. Then, I will go by Social Services and see if I can acquire some contacts which might help me pay my power bill. I am also going to text Bridget and ask for money, since the bitch owes me $430, and has owed it since May, but that is a long shot, because she has really convinced herself that she doesn't owe it to me because I "disrespected" her, which is a total load of crap and an excuse to not pay me. It's also unpleasant, because every time I ask her for my money back, she gets all huffy and sends me nasty text messages, or I get nasty drunken voicemail from her trained chihuahua. But, I'm desperate, and, if I don't prod her about it, I'll never get anything from her at all, ever. Some friend, huh?

OMIGAWD! I was on my way to work the other day, and, lo and behold: the City of Baton Rouge actually fixed something! No kidding, two of the worst spots on Perkins Rd. were actually repaired, after a fashion (see photo above). Of course, all they did was throw some tarmac on the problem and whack it with a shovel, but it's the first actual attempt at repair I have seen in ages. Now, all they have to do is fix the other hundred or so holes on Perkins Rd., and everything will be hunky-dory.

So, keep a positive attitude: why not? Sure, you're really daft to do it, considering how shitty everything really is, but reality sucks: that's what drugs are for. More's the pity, I can't afford drugs.

Crappity Doo-Dah

Things are just fucking tough, and that's all there is to it. Okay, I have had to scrounge hours here and there because the Front-end Manager took me off the schedule for two fucking weeks: that's bad enough. I rode home Thursday night and hit a piece of crap on Perkins Rd., and had to walk the last mile home, and didn't get home until 11:35, and I was starving and tired and totally pissed off. I nuked something (I think it was a pot pie), watched Adult Swim for awhile, and crashed.

So, I wound up paying $27 to the bike shop to fix my wheel (I busted a spoke, too), which I can't really afford, because now I don't have enough money to pay my bills. Let's get one thing clear: Baton Rouge has the shittiest streets for a city it's size that I have seen in my life. Perkins Rd.,which I have to ride on an almost daily basis, is less an highway than an interconnected series of potholes. Riding on Baton Rouge streets means dodging holes, cracks, rocks and assorted debris, which is made more problematic by the fact that Baton Rouge drivers, for the most part, don't give a crap about your safety, if they are not openly hostile towards bicycles, which many are. If the City of Baton Rouge owns a single street sweeper, I am not aware of it: I have never seen one or any results of the existence of one.

And, they don't fix anything! The bridge in the picture above, which is a bridge on one of the few "bike trails" in the whole city, was smashed by a car over two years ago: they have just got round to fixing it, and they haven't done much on it in the past two weeks. Rather than ride across it, which I actually could before they started fixing it, I now have to go around it. It is now an obstacle.

So Sunday,I got together with Travis and Fernando, and we did laundry and Fernando grilled burgers and we watched War of the Worlds (the new one) with D. who came by. Then, I went home and watched Kubrick's Lolita. On the way back to my chair from taking a leak, I managed to stub the fuck out of my left great toe on the big, clunky iron heater, with the result that the nail jabbed into my flesh and blood went everywhere: it was ghastly. It finally stopped bleeding, and I went to bed.

This morning, the Liquor manager called and asked me if I could come in and work for five hours. My phone wouldn't dial out (I had to pay $45 on the bill), so I went by Travis' house and used his phone and went in to work. The ride over caused my toe to bleed, and the blood soaked through my brand-new trainers. Yay. It gets better.

I get home and I finally got a power bill and, with it, a disconnect notice for $268, that has to be paid by Friday (the 13th, of course). So, I have to give my landlord all the money I have tomorrow, pay him the rest on Thursday, and come up with $268 by Friday. Which brings me to my point: why the FUCK can't American corporations pay their employees enough money to live off of? Why do they not feel a MORAL COMPUNCTION to take care of the people who work for them? I have NO benefits, because I AM NOT ALLOWED FULL-TIME EMPLOYMENT. This is the only country among modern, industrialised nations to allow corporations to treat their citizens in such a despicable manner. American corporations who treat thier employees like this SHOULD BE ASHAMED! Their officers grow fat and rich, and their stockholders prosper, while the very people who toil for their benefit CAN'T EVEN FUCKING SURVIVE IN POVERTY!

Yeah, it stinks. Maybe Obama and the new breath of hope in this country will change that, but it won't be before my electricity is cut off or I am homeless again. Tomorrow, I will take what I have to my landlord and ask his pardon. Then, I will start calling local charitable organisations, to see if, just maybe, I can find someone who can help me out. Then, I will pray that I don't have another Crappity doo-dah day anytime soon.