Oh How The Mighty Have Fallen...
Yeah, the title is a little misleading I guess for the post. Especially to those waiting around for an honorable mention here. Is that cryptic? Maybe. But it is what it is.
I'm selling my house. A house I never thought I'd have to sell, the place that was my constant growing up, the place that contains most of my happy childhood memories, the place I could always call home when my parents couldn't keep the rent paid and we had to move houses....again. This place that has turned into a poisonous vat of unhappiness that is my life now. This place that would have ripped a family any less in love with each other than my own apart. This place that now also harbors so much resentment for what should have been that I've begun to hate the very existense of its cloying stench. Is this dramatic? Sure, but what am I if not a dramatic attention seeking person that requires people to feel sorry for what I don't have? Oh.....wait, that's another blog entirely, but I digress.
This house is mine to sell. It was left to my mother and her brother, my uncle. My uncle who also inherited every single penny of the life insurance money my mom thought she was going to get and didn't. My uncle who had convinced my grandmother, while in the midst of her dementia, to cash in the biggest of several life insurance policies before she even died so he could have the cash to buy a house. For his asshole of a wife that he was planning on leaving within months. My uncle who promptly died in a horrific car accident exactly 84 days after my grandmother died. Leaving my aunt with not only the money from the policies my grandmother held but also, my uncle's life insurance. He worked at a hazardous job as a chemical engineer at a borax plant so it was a pretty penny. A very very pretty penny. More money that I will ever see in my life. I suppose I should mention my aunt and I haven't gotten along much since she gave me a lecture on Godliness and the fact that my oldest son was born with a cleft lip and palate as my punishment by God and the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for living in sin with his father before we were married. Ya know, that guy I've been married to for 20 years now and was married to before my son was concieved? That very same guy that decided that even though I was pregnant WITH SOMEONE ELSE'S CHILD when we got together that he still wanted to be with me so he was there for the birth of my daughter and has raised her as his own her entire life? That's the one. My son has what was deemed to be a combination of genetic and environmental birth defect because we "lived in sin". That's right people, if you live with someone out of wedlock, evidently you are blessed with a briliant child that may happen to have a special need or two. If that's my "punishment" I'll take that any day over her crusty, dried up, and probably frigid vagina that was never able to have her own biological children. I don't think I'm the one being punished there, but I'm a big old fat fucking Pagan, so what do I know anyway?
So moving right along, because chances are good I could complain about her all damn day long but I don't want to sour my mood, and since I'm up at an unheard of hour blogging, I mean, I COULD be in a good mood today, you just never know. So, the house really is legally mine to sell. There was never any debate about that, but the way the paperwork looks, it does look fishy if you didn't know the situation in detail. I happen to have the details lined out in a big old binder that was fortunately kept in the same place all these years. But the one piece of it I was missing was the death certificate for my uncle. And I had to get one. Which meant calling my aunt. So what did I do? I had Ronnie do it. Because I am a chicken shit and I can't stand her. So it was a game of phone tag for a couple of calls and then he just got brave and left a message that said pretty much that he was sorry to be caling for that reason, but we needed a copy of the death certificate. But he didn't say why because he ran out of time on her voice mail. About 20 minutes later she calls back and I didn't get the phone in time. It really does happen, so don't get all "yeah right you did, you were ducking her call" because I really did miss the call. The message she left was at best rude, and at worst, meant to make us feel like utter shit for daring to call and ask such a thing, like this was the most awful thing we could do. "I can't imagine why you could possibly need a copy of his death certificate, that's just such an awful and morbid thing to ask for! I can't believe you'd ask for that in a phone message, but I GUESS you MUST have some unknown reason for it. But I can't imagine what it would be or why YOU could possibly need it." But lo and behold about 10 minutes after the message, the doorbell rings and who should it be but her, holding a color copy of the front of his death certificate. Because we don't rate and actual stamped and seal version. My 19 year old son (the punishment child) panicked and told her we had stepped out so I didn't have to talk to her (OMG thank you son!!) and took the paper and she left.
I showed it to my husband, who had been giving the four year old hellion a bath and he immediately called her to tell her why we needed it and to thank her. He simply told her that we needed to get the trust paperwork in order because frankly, it's not her businsess. She doesn't want anything to do with the house and none of the profits would be hers anyway, so I am not legally obligated to tell her jack shit. Why didn't I just go to the registrar recorder and buy my own? Because I'm broke as a joke. Not a funny one either and I'll give you a side note that I'm sure will give a few people a giggle and make their day. So to them, I say, you're welcome for the information, because I know you crave the dirt on us to have something to sit around and gossip about. Anyway, I literally don't even have the $30 to go buy one until payday and I didn't want to wait. So I didn't. I swallowed what little pride I might have left and asked her. While Ronnie was talking to her, he mentioned my mom had a stroke, something she had not known, because she doesn't care and we never talk to her. And her comparison to my mom having a stroke and being bedridden is that she spent so much of the life insurance money already that she had to get a job, poor little gal, and she had to have some kind of surgery that requires physical therapy ALL WHILE HOLDING DOWN A JOB!!! Because I think she might be the first person to ever do that. Like, ever. Because I know I sure as hell never had surgery on Saturday at a surgery center only to have to return to work on Monday because I was out of sick days and vacation days and had bils to pay and kids to feed, and no savings to rely on. And mine was *gasp* even a full time job as compared to her part time job. I mean, I know mine was just a laproscopic procedure on my abdomen and cutting out a fibroid and an ovarian cyst the size of a small grapefruit which fucking ruptured during the procedure, compared to her damn shoulder but hers is probably the most painful shoulder injury one could possibly sustain. I'll ask my husband while he's lifing my 160 pound mom out of her bed to her bedside commode or her wheelchair with not one but two torn rotator cuffs (the part in the shoulder joint that holds the socket together, it's the soft tissue if I understand correcty). But she's expecting a big congratulations for working like a normal person.
I WOULD WORK IF I WAS NOT SICK. I AM IN NO WAY FAKING OR EXAGGERATING MY SYMPTOMS. I AM VERY SORRY TO THOSE PEOPLE THAT BELIEVE I AM AND I DO. BUT THE TRUTH IS I SPEND MORE ENERGY DOWNPLAYING AND HIDING SYMPTOMS THAN I DO ANYTHING ELSE BECAUSE ALL I'VE EVER WANTED IN LIFE IS FOR PEOPLE TO LIKE ME AND ADMIRE ME FOR MY TALENTS AND PEOPLE DON'T LIKE SICK PEOPLE OR ADMIRE THEM FOR ANYTHING OTHER THAN BEING SICK AND LIVING THROUGH IT. I do not want to be admired for being sick, I want to be admired for other things, most of which I'm too embarrassed to put in here and I know for sure that there are people that read this that woud use it to their advantage and just make me feel bad about it. So I'll just keep it to myself. So there.
So my poor little rich girl auntie poo pie has to work because she doesn't have a husband to pay her to keep house or to raise their bought babies (because my alcoholic uncle had some dark seedy thing in his past and they could not adopt through an agency, my grandparents, his parents and her parents who have more money than sense, bought them not one but two babies to raise). Poor thing has to take care of herself and while I'm sitting over here broke as fuck, my family has been blessed with babies and a grandchild that she doesn't even know about because she forgot we existed the day her husband died, and she is telling my husband how disappointed she is in us that she hasn't heard from us until now and then it's over this. Well, guess what? No one hears from me sometimes, even the people I love the most.
Speaking of which, that side note, it's one of my all time lows in life. I really wish people would understand how expensive my utilities are. I fucking hate having to hear people complain about their little $200 electric bills and how terrible it is to have to pay them. I would love to see them pay mine. I'd love to see several people try to live on what we make while they bitch about how broke they are. They'd miss some of their finer things in life really fucking quick let me tell ya, but the fact is, I highly doubt these people could live on our budget. Especially while paying for all four of my own kids and my grandchild. People here don't go without what they need either. Maybe they don't always get what they want, but that's true for even the most affluent of kids. Anyway, back to my fucking electric bill. It is huge. The smallest it gets all year is about $300. Everything in this house except the heat and the hot water heater is electric. In the summer, it's upwards of $700 in the months we have to run the air conditioner 24/7. I'd like to open a window and have it be livable but when the low temperature is 88 degrees, I can't do it. I have a physical limitation when it comes to heat. It can kind of kill me. Which is how I got in the situation I got in. I actually have a medical allowance for my electric so they can't disconnect my services until after I reach a certain total. Our totay is $1,500 so in the summer, it's easy to get to that limit. But the thing is, when you only make $1,800 a month for all of these people, not to mention all these pets, you run out of money a whole lot faster than you run out of bills to pay. And my mom prioritizes the cable above the other utilities. The cable includes our phone and internet also, but we still have more cable than we should. But my mom pays for it out of her social security and all she does all day is lie in bed watching television so I can justify that expense for her while she pays it. When she doesn't pay it, it will not be here. When it was just us, it was internet with phone and we watched Netflix and Hulu and we were happy with that. So we ran up a giant bill. I'm talking close to 5k. And I know what you're thinking, that's impossibe, but I assure you it is not. When your bill averages over $500 a month and you can only ever afford to pay $200-$300 a month, your balance starts to add up. And up and up and up. Until you have a leftover balance of thousands of dollars. And then a very very nasty woman from the corporate office calls you on a Thursday and gives you until Monday at 5 to get $1,800 paid or they will turn it off. One thousand eight hundred dollars. That is quite literally more money than we make in a month. I know I said $1.800 before but I lied, we're many dollars short of that number every month. Then you take out taxes and union dues and you end up with quite a bit less than you started with. Everyone asks why I don't get social security. Because I've been denied 3 times. Two terminal diagnosis for my heart and all MY doctors say I can't work. That between my heart and my back it will kill me, but the social security doctors say different. And there are other ramifications of me going on social security that I can't expain here, but they exist. It makes the benefits not outweigh the negatives at this point. So I'm rambling, it's my blog, sue me. LOL Anyway, they gave me a weekend to get the money. An amount I have no way of coming up with myself, and i lost my shit understandaby. I had $200 in the bank and a water bill left to pay and formula and diapers left to buy for my granddaughter, Mavyn. Why isn't she breastfed and in cloth you ask? Because her mom had a horrible recovery from her c section which split open the day she came home, Mavyn has a shallow palate and had a hard time latching, and my daughter was starting to suffer emotionally from pumping exclusively for her, also, all the cloth diaper friendy laundry detergent I could afford gave that baby a rash. Not that it's anyone's fucking business why I need to spend that money there but since people love to say I just waste all my money on stupid shit and that's why I'm always broke, I figured I'd explain it.
So I had to "borrow" a huge sum of money. I say it that way because at this point, he's "lent" me probably about as much money as we make in a year over the course of the 8 years I have known him. I am a pathetic person, I know. I hear through the grapevine I'm not the only one that thinks that. This part of this story only gets more pathetic though. He had the hardest time sending me that amount, first he tried to wire it through western union. He paid a HUGE fee to do so, we waited, I tried to confirm it before we went to get it so we knew for sure it was available. I couldn't get it to show up so I called them, and in turn, they told me to have the sender call them to release it. He did, only to be essentially humiliated by them with a series of invasive questions about how we know each other and for how long. They then proceeded to explain to him that they would not put the wire through because they believe me to be commiting fraud. I have never gotten a western union wire from anyone else in more than 20 years. And my husband, who the wire was actually made out to because I do not have valid ID has not gotten any. Ever. From anyone but him. Ever. But they were HAPPY to take his money at the counter, charge him the fee and hold his money for a while because every minute they have it, they collect interest on it. Then he got to wait until they put it back. All the while, I am freaking the fuck out about the damn bill and feeling like the worst person in the world for having to ask him for anything let alone that much. But yet again, he saves my ass, he saves my family again. Like the time he got my gas turned back on, or the time he got my electric turned back on after I woke up to it off (these were both when my mom was being super helpful and making payment arrangements and not telling anyone OR paying them). So he saves my ass frequently. What is that relationship you ask? That is truly none of anyone's business but his and mine. I will state that I love him very much but like I said, past that, it's none of anyone's business and my husband not only knows about our relationship but fully condones it. He is my hero in more ways than one. And then I'm gonna quote Forrest Gump and say that's all I have to say about that.
So that was a long damn blog and it took me several hours to fully write it because I started in the wee morning hours, dealt with a ton of interruptions, got a kid ready for school, drank 3 cups of coffee and watched several episodes of Archer on Netflix. Or rather listened to them while typing. So I'm going to go try to rest a bit before I start the stress iof scanning documents for financing my new home. Because I have no clue where we are going yet. I will say that my famiy is dead set on a really beautiful 5 bedroom mobile home that we actually can afford that's been on the market for more than 60 days. Our agent has soken with several mobile home sellers that have told him that absolutely with a 30% down payment our credit won't be an issue. And it's not that we have bad credit per se, just a low score because we don't buy things on credit. If we don't have the cash for it, we do not buy it. Because when you live above your means you get used to the finer things in life and when you abruptly lose them, you are at a loss and think your life is awful and you act like a douche about it. Trust me. I know this from being the one that loses and being the one that gets tossed aside like yesterday's garbage because I'm no longer the person they can make fun of to make themselves feel better about how great their life is. But yeah, I'm not bitter about that at all. So that's my story for today and I am realy leaving now.
Until next time...
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