How do I hate my life? Let me count the ways...

Merry F*cking Christmas

from JoeUser Forums
It's been a while since I have posted here, and in case anyone was actually following my blog, I apologize for that. I had some pretty good reasons for neglecting to blog. Oh, where do I start?

Someone stole $700 cash out of my purse immediately after I got paid.
I missed 5 days of work because that money was for the repair of the brake lines on my car, which are rusted through, and for gas so we could get to work.
My husband isn't getting paychecks because his boss is our landlord and we're behind on rent.
My next paycheck, which I just received today, was $300 for two weeks because of the missed time.
My heat is off because we ran out of fuel oil. It will cost at least $500 to refill the tank.
My water is off and they want $100 before they will turn it back on.
I have no food except what the food pantry would give me.
My daughter has had to stay with her grandmother for the past two weeks because we can't fit the whole family in my husband's truck. I miss her.
The truck is completely out of gas, but I can't do anything about it. I have to keep going to work or else I will lose my job. So if I run out of gas halfway home, I will have to take the baby and walk the rest of the way.
I have no tree, no presents, no Christmas for the kids this year.

And what makes it all so much worse is seeing everyone around me having such a wonderful time, going out to eat, buying presents, seeing movies, wasting their money on this or that. That's the kind of thing that could make a person really bitter.

So, Merry Christmas everyone. I hope you all have a great time. I will be at home, missing my child, shivering and hungry, and crying because I failed to provide any joy for my children this year. Cheers!
2,842 views 5 replies
Reply #1 from JoeUser Forums Top

I wish I could help but all I can do is try to encourage you to find help.  Call the heat and water company and see if they offer any kind of emergency assistance.  Call some local churches or charities and see if they have any programs that will help you provide at least a small Christmas for your children.  Also maybe contact local radio stations, newspapers etc. and see if they might tell your story to the public.  There are many people that are willing to help if they know who needs the help.  Call the landlord and see if he would be willing to only take half the paycheck until rent is caught up explaining your situation.  Look up your states tenant rights laws to see if what he is doing is allowed.  Here are a couple of links to check out.  I hope things get better. 

http://www.angelfoodministries.com/

http://www.modestneeds.org/

Reply #2 from JoeUser Forums Top
little-whip, that is a great Christmas poem. It's funny how credit cards are touted as the path to financial freedom, but in reality every purchase with a credit card is like putting one more bar on your jail cell. Even in the situation I am in now, I thank God that my credit is too bad to qualify for a credit card!


Locamama, I appreciate your generous spirit! I know there are many people out there who are willing to help with our situation. In fact, our church has been extremely generous and given us $30 in gas gift cards in the past week, which is the only reason I am still able to get to work. Honestly, this post was done in a spirit of bitterness and despair, both of which I need to try to steer away from. But I need to vent every once in a while, you know? Otherwise I would explode! It's all fine and good to walk around with a smile all day, being grateful for the kind words and few dollars that our very generous friends are able to give us, but I still feel so angry inside about the whole thing. I know that we are in this place due to a wealth of very poor choices, and those decisions are nobody's fault but our own. And I also know that in marriage I am bound to the consequences of all of the bad choices my husband has made and will make, and he to mine. That doesn't make me feel better about it in the slightest! My husband set up this arrangement with his boss/landlord and does not want to go back on it because the man is fairly volatile and it is Christmas after all--the guy has his own family to feed. God forbid he put his own family first! His compassion and generosity are a few of the reasons I love him, but I have to draw the line somewhere!

We have applied for HEAP and they said they would pay for the fuel oil tank to be filled halfway, and a program called People in Need has offered to pay the water bill if we can first come up with $25 for their fee. I hear there is a mechanic affiliated with the church that will do car repairs at cost, but he is out of town at the moment and when he gets back, he will likely not be able to finish the repair for a couple of weeks, since he works the charity around his regular car repair business. So, I grudgingly admit that there is light at the end of the tunnel, but I'm still stuck on the whole Christmas thing. My parents were extremely poor, but they still always managed at least a few small presents for each of us. I can't help but feel like this makes me a bad parent.
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Reply #3 from JoeUser Forums Top
I can't help but feel like this makes me a bad parent.
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Don't feel that way, Caeli. You guys are doing the best you can. I'm glad to hear there's light at the end of the tunnel, but terribly sorry you guys are going through this.

And don't worry about grumbling some. The people who walk around with smiles on their faces all the time are either on heavy psychotropic drugs or faking.
Reply #4 from JoeUser Forums Top
And what makes it all so much worse is seeing everyone around me having such a wonderful time, going out to eat, buying presents, seeing movies, wasting their money on this or that. That's the kind of thing that could make a person really bitter.


Then your frame of view is limited. I wasted 4 US dollars on a new hat. I bought it from a guy named Abraham who is a bathroom attendant at the Fish Market in Limbe, Cameroon. When I say "bathroom attendant," what I mean is he collects tips to let people urinate somewhere besides "over by that tree." He has no car, he has no house - fuel oil isn't needed because it's hotter than hell there, so I guess he's got that going for him. If the fish were big enough, he couldn't swing one without hitting 1,000,000 others just like him. There are never presents or trees - even in the best of times - and there is no such thing as a movie or a TV or a DVD player for folks like Abraham. His life expectancy is 65 years at the very most, and someone living that old is rare. Abraham was 55. He looked 70 and was one of the lucky ones. The weirdest thing about visiting Cameroon aka Ghana aka Togo aka Angola aka Sao Tome aka Gabone aka etc...is that you never see any real old people. It's because they don't have any.

You know another fact about Abraham and his 1,000,000 others? They're all pretty damned happy for some reason. I can't really figure it out. I can tell you it isn't God - they're actually very devout Christians in Cameroon, but they don't appeal to Him for happiness and they don't rely on him to bail them out. They just thank Him for living another day. It's what Whip said above. They're happy because they live in the present. Those poor f**kers don't have time to worry about the future, and the past is gone and done with. They are totally all about "right now" and while you probably wouldn't want to trade places with any of them based on their "haves" and "have nots," it's hard to meet these people and not envy the smiles on their faces. They're happier than most Americans I know. Why that is, is a mystery - but a mystery worth solving.

Best Wishes,
Ock
Reply #5 from JoeUser Forums Top
Even I was amazed at the outpouring of generosity, and i 'know' (or thought i knew) many of these benefactors. Hang in there, the relationships you can form here can change your life, and I don't mean in a material way. (Ask Gid for another example.)
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LW's right.

The holiday season is a sucky time of year in general. I find it interesting, after ad nauseum's explanation of Eid to note that so many major religions have a "giving" holiday this time a year. It's not coincidental. It's mighty tough to get by.

I hope you guys came through OK, and that as the days get brighter, so does your outlook.

We're waiting for "po' people Christmas" ourselves -- that is, when the tax refund comes in the mail and we can get those near necessities we've been putting off.