As of late,
life has been a bit full of fuckery.
January is always creaky around the edges with resolutions and bad weather and tax statements from the IRS.
But this last week?
Kinda made me catch my breath with how…bad…it was,
just with a multitude of petty things.
I dropped my car off for an expensive routine maintenance that *had* to be done,
along with trying to get an electrical problem fixed
in order to get my fix-it ticket dismissed
(oh, L.A.!).
When I came to pick up the car,
I tried paying for it with a credit card that I got and activated through my bank,
just for this purpose.
Guess whose card was denied?
It took me almost three hours, four different people, and five “CARD DECLINED” tries before that problem was resolved,
and I drove out $500 poorer.
I went to the police station to get my ticket signed off,
since it was due Monday.
I was informed that the City of Sierra Madre needed twelve dollars,
in cash, exact change,
in order for an officer to leave his desk,
walk twenty feet to my car,
and see me flick my headlights on.
I ran to the bank,
ran back,
and was then told that I didn’t have the correct paperwork,
and needed the actual ticket.
Ran home.
Spent almost an hour searching frantically for said ticket.
Found it.
Went back.
Signed off.
Ticket in the mail, along with an additional $25
to the DMV to indicate that I had not, in fact, done anything wrong.
(For those keeping track at home,
I am now $547 poorer on Friday than I was Wednesday)
In an attempt to alleviate some of that poorness,
I had a yard sale on Saturday morning,
and managed to both be pleasant to other humans before 8 o’clock AM
and pull in about $50,
which is pretty darn good for a bunch of neglected crap pulled off of our balcony.
Saturday night was…
bad.
Just.
Bad.
I decided to hide from the world under my covers for most of Sunday
(this has been happening often around here),
but got some good out of the day watching “True Grit” with friends
(beautiful cinematography, great dialogue, and a fantastic cast).
I was woken up this morning by a Sierra Madre PolicePerson banging on my door.
That woman had the audacity to demand eleven dollars for a “yard sale permit”,
and to tell me that if I “had questions about it” I should have called City Hall to see if a permit was needed.
It’s not just the fact that I was charged for something
that I had no way of possibly knowing,
post-fact, and by an incredibly rude human being.
It’s that eleven dollars?
For me?
That’s a loaf of bread, 1/2 gallon of milk, and five apples.
It’s enough to feed me for a little over a week.
That’s three gallons of gas.
That’s a dance class.
It’s a bag of food for my dog.
It’s not nothing, in other words, not to me.
Additionally,
I still haven’t heard back from either of the two interviews I went on this month,
in spite of following up.
(I also feel like a whinging brat because almost all of my troubles
boil down to finances. And that just seems so…pathetic.
I mean, I could sell a kidney or something.)
It’s the little things.
I honestly feel like if I just lock my bedroom door and refuse to come out,
maybe nothing will go wrong.
I keep hoping for an end to the bad,
and in spite of what I said on my birthday
about not letting a year trample all over me,
it’s still happening.
And I’m wondering if,
this time,
I just shouldn’t bother getting up again.
