Been doing Netwinner like crazy. Some days are still better than others. Yesterday I was barely up over 1000 points after 500 spins, today I was up 1000 points after just 100 spins.

That person who has millions of points has referred nearly 3000 people, so that’s how they’re racking up points like crazy. I wish I had a spammer’s list of email addresses so I could send zillions of referrals out myself.

There are still no other suitable work-at-home jobs I could find. Just the usual “You pay to work for us” jobs. Better yet the “You buy our products and hope to hell you can sell them” jobs.

Two nights ago I dreamt I won 50 grand. I hope this means I’m sitting on another big win, just like the dream I had of winning a car or 25K meant a big win was to come as in the high-def TV.

Whoa, now I’m up 6000 points in just 125 spins!

Today Kate Jackson is 59, and I’ve been journaling for 20 years as of two days ago! Right now the net is out, which still happens despite being faster and more reliable overall. You would think by now there’d be reliable service everywhere, but nope. Gotta be in your own place for that.

It turns out that Netwinner has 7 partner sites, each allowing you 100 spins a day. Either they’ve increased the odds on the multipliers, or I’m doing a better job of influencing it because I’ve been getting points like crazy. We had Tom sign up too, using me as a referral, so I’d not only get points for referring him, but a 10% bonus for all the points he wins as well. I should easily be able to get $100 a month as long as things stay this way! And as long as I can have a reliable connection too, though it won’t leave much time for much else other than sweeping. My stories will progress very slowly, but I figure there’s no hurry anyway.

We went to Walmart really early yesterday morning and then hung out here all day watching TV, munching on junk, and playing Netwinner.

Jessie read my journal excerpts on the nightmare we went through and said it was amazing how strong we are, despite having thoughts of giving up. I sure as hell thought we weren’t going to have a choice in that department for a while! I hope we never go through anything that scary and stressful again.

I saw Josephina today. She came to do the end room, and when I saw it was her since I had the window open, I stepped out to say hello. She said she still smelled the incense and wanted to know where to get it from. So I gave her the web address, as well as my phone and email, saying that maybe we could learn Italian together once we got out of here. She thanked me and said she’d pray for me.

What was weird was that she left next door without doing the room. She went inside before she took off, then she returned to do it later on after the guy had returned to it. I guess he doesn’t want it done unless he’s there.

Today they replaced the bed which had been in here for 5 years, though it looked more like 20, and later on they’re doing the door. I hope they won’t keep making pests of themselves after this, and that Josephina does the room this Thursday when it’s scheduled to be done next.

Next door just got up to bang around, so I put the headphones on. They’re up all night and out all day, although I only just now heard them and have been up since 1:30.

I guess the guy on the end is still here, too. I wonder if he’ll pay for another month or not. I hope so since he’s usually quiet. There’s got to be more going on with him than just wanting an apartment. Apartments are so easy to get.

Sure enough, Josephina was off yesterday, so I ended up with that Indian lady. I don’t know if she was pissed or in a major hurry or what, but she wasn’t the least bit friendly when she stormed through here to clean. If anything she was bordering on rude and I hope she won’t be back anytime soon. I don’t know if she just doesn’t like to chat while she works or if something else was going on, but she’s definitely not a favorite of mine around here at this point. I noticed something was wrong with her the last time she came to assist Josephina. I thought she was just having a rough day or something because I heard her telling Josephina something about nearly passing out of thirst. I think this was the second out of the 4 times Josephina’s done this room.

They’re also making pests of themselves with this inspection thing they’ve got going on here. It’s not just about the sprinklers and smoke detectors, but about doors, beds and who knows what else as well? Motels and apartments always have something going on. Today the maintenance guy is coming to replace the metal plate on the outside bottom of the door so there isn’t as much of a gap. Then next week I get a new bed. At least it’ll be softer with its plush pillow top.

Netwinner’s got a new thing going on where instead of having unlimited plays at Netwinner itself, you only get 100 plays per day there, plus 100 plays at each of their two partner sites. There’s another one coming soon, too. At first I was pissed, though I don’t usually play more than 300 times a day anyway. I just hope they don’t go limiting anything else! Yesterday I did great and got 1810 points in my 300 spins, but today I’m not even up 300 points and half my plays are made.

Later…

I ended up doing better today at just over 3000 points, and I found another partner site, too. The problem is that the net’s been out the last half hour or so. I hope this isn’t going to turn out to be any big deal like the last time, and that it won’t be days before it’s fixed. The guy at the front desk said there’s a number to call cuz they don’t handle that, which sort of sucks. Why should it be on the guests to get it fixed? We’re the ones paying the motel for the damn service.

There was a Daddy long-legs in here and a big web at the base of the AC, so I started heading for the office to get a broom. On my way there, I could see some of the new mattresses laid out in the parking lot. They’re starting with the ground floor replacements. There I ran into the maintenance guy who said he totally forgot about the door plate and would probably do that as well as replace the bed on Monday. I told him that was ok because I was looking for a broom, though preferably a vacuum, to suck up the spider and web. So he had one of the housekeepers who’s only done this room once before come up with a vacuum. It’s a good thing it wasn’t that Indian chick. I’m sure she’d have hated to be reduced to having to drag a vacuum up here all for a spider and its web! I asked about Josephina and she said she was working on the first floor. I said to say hi to her.

By Wednesday the 10th, the card still hadn’t come and we were faced with having to return to the streets once more. If one day of that nearly killed me, however, then a few or more certainly would! If we’d had a camper or even a bigger, newer, more comfortable truck, van or SUV, that’d be different. But even if we could live forever in our vehicle, we still need money for food and gas, and well, it’s nice to be able to take showers and wash clothes, too!

Wednesday was the most miserable day. I felt so out of touch with reality and just life itself. I truly believed that life as I’d known it for the most part was over and that we’d done all we could to try to save ourselves. As I lay in bed trembling and crying while he was at work, I told myself, “Face it, there’s no getting out of this one. You tried your best, but you simply can’t fix this one. Your time’s up here in this life. It’s time to move on now, so you better just focus on the good in dying.”

After all, I never did want to grow old, arthritic, and maybe get cancer or diabetes. And while I have no regrets about not having kids and having to deal with the burdens and expenses they’d have brought for 20 years or so, not having them meant having no one to look out for us in the end, and that was always scary to me, too. I also kept in mind that the stereos would only keep getting louder, people weren’t about to quit leaving their dogs out to bark all the time, and we’d probably never get to live where we wanted. So what would be the point in carrying on anyway just to be forced by fate to settle for this and settle for that? Although people like to think otherwise, life really isn’t what we plan it for the most part, so why bother?

I wrote a note to be copied for both our families. I also left messages I wanted given to Jessie, Paula and Mary. I explained that while neither of us wanted to die, it angered and frustrated us to know that our lives depended on a lousy piece of plastic, people did need money to live on, like it or not. I urged them not to be sad or mad, and to keep in mind that there are plenty of pros to not living as there are to living. I gave user name and password information for my online journals, stories and photo albums, including the location of the storage and mail places. I said that while I still had nothing to say to my brother or to Tom’s mother, who stopped caring years ago, to tell my sister (the drama queen) that she’s a bitch, but I forgive her, even though in reality I’m not sure that I ever could.

I asked that Jessie be told, “I hope you make it to the land of Disney magic!”

I wanted Mary told, “You really do have balls of brass.”

Lastly, I wanted Paula told, “Hey stranger, write more often!” since she never writes. It was the hardest thing I ever wrote, fully believing at the time that we’d be dead in a matter of hours.

A picture of our tombstones came to mind and I pictured the dates on them and wondered where we’d be buried. Not that it would matter since we would soon no longer be needing our bodies, but I was naturally curious just the same. Would they separate us and ship me back east? Would they bury us both down in Arizona? California?

I missed Tinkerbell like crazy but was glad she wasn’t there to have to go through this shit with us. I was glad I wouldn’t have to wonder what would become of her as well.

And then the paranoia set in. We were going to kill ourselves at midnight when we knew there’d be less chance of someone knocking, be it because they had the wrong room, wanted to change TV stations, inspect sprinklers, inspect smoke detectors, etc. But speaking of detectors, wasn’t it the law for motels to have carbon monoxide detectors set in their vents?

Now, everything that could possibly go wrong started running through my mind. I asked the guy on the end if he could possibly help us, but that was a waste of time and I felt like an idiot for trying.

Next came the feelings of guilt. I felt bad that I wasn’t a better influencer, and the thought that I may’ve “jinx-written” Tom’s death by having him die in one of my stories made me feel all the more miserable. I promised to change that character’s identity if I lived. I also felt that if I truly was in any way responsible for getting us into this mess by cussing God out, then I should be the one to try to fix it.

Then I became both sad and angry at the little things we wouldn’t live to do if I couldn’t figure something out, and fast, too. I didn’t care if I never got another doll again, but I wanted to see Tom do the hobbies he enjoyed, like watching TV, playing computer games, and even trying to fine-tune those damn handicapping numbers. Those stupid little things became such a big deal all of a sudden and my stubbornness was kicking in, and so was that survival instinct we all have. I wanted to live to listen to my stereo again, to see my dolls if I didn’t have to sell them, to hang my wind chimes, to learn Italian, and to finish my stories. After all, even though it may take quite a while and Jessie has enough to read of mine for some time to come, I promised to send her both The Influencer and We’ll Meet Again Someday once they’re finished. I also wanted to do silly things like laugh at the Klammers, Jessie and Paula when it was cold and snowing on them.

I lay there thinking of the things I’d do differently if I could figure out a way out of this mess. I knew I still would never be religious due to how strict, structured and narrow-minded religion expects you to be, and I wouldn’t go to church, buy religious icons or start bopping out to religious tunes, but I would return to the basic prayers I stopped doing up in Oregon. It wasn’t until I stopped praying for the basic necessities in life that things started going downhill. I told myself I’d try to be more grateful for what we do have and less resentful for what we didn’t have. After all, we simply weren’t meant to have the same lives or incomes any more than we’re meant to have the same personalities and preferences.

I realized I was afraid to die, not knowing if I would truly be going to a better place or what. More so I was afraid of the dying process and how slow and painful it may be, than actually being dead. Tom, on the other hand, was never afraid to die. He just didn’t want to. I don’t think anyone literally wants to. They just want to be happy and have the things they need in life. Even so, I remember thinking to myself, this is what it must feel like to be on death row. But even that would’ve been easier because you’re dead in seconds. Dying the way we were going to could take hours. It probably would’ve taken just a few minutes, but the possibility of it taking hours was pretty scary.

This was when I realized that the only way I could kill myself without hesitation would be if anything happened to Tom. I still don’t think we’ll ever get to “go home,” and find our ideal little corner of the universe, but I’d happily settle for those little things I was starting to miss like crazy.

Now totally desperate, I knew there was only one thing left to try, even if it may be a long shot. It was a last resort and definitely not something I wanted to do, seeing that it was kind of humiliating. But our need to survive overrode any embarrassment I might’ve felt, and thanks to my impeccable memory, I remembered Mary’s number. I was surprised she accepted the collect call from me in the first place. Maybe she did so not knowing if I were calling to say that Tom died or something like that, since it was my voice she was hearing as the caller requesting that she accept the charges. Knowing that she and the Queen wouldn’t care to help, I asked that she contact my parents in Florida who don’t accept collect calls. Sure enough, she didn’t offer to help, but asked what was wrong before she made the call, so I told her. While I’m grateful to her for contacting my folks, she never did care to call back if only to see how we were.

I’d have called my folks directly, but the phone charger accidentally got tossed in storage and the phone was dead.

After hanging up with Miss Perfect, each minute seemed to equal a dozen, but I knew all I could do was wait and hope for the best at that point. If no one would help us, we would have to carry on killing ourselves as planned. I couldn’t stay on this emotional rollercoaster forever anyway.

The phone rang a few minutes later. I snatched it up to find both my parents on the line. I explained the situation as best I could for being as freaked out as I was and with them being in their mid-70s and not as sharp-minded. At first my mother said $100 was the best she could do, saying that medical expenses were leaving them tight. I wondered if she was playing down their money, knowing they’d done that in the past. Yet I also knew that social security only covered the bare minimum and that you had to be the one to pay for anything extra.

This was when she told me she’d had her own problems, too. She smoked for over 55 years and had 40% of one lung removed before she quit smoking last January, plus she had breast cancer surgery as well. As lousy of a mother as she was, this really sucked to hear.

She also informed me that Goldie, Al, Jimmy and Marty had passed on. Marty, I couldn’t care less about but the others saddened me. I asked about Charlotte and mom says she’s ok.

She also wanted to make it clear to me that I was the only one she’d ever helped and that she never helped Larry or Tammy, as I assumed was the case. Either way, it didn’t matter who she had or hadn’t helped. It only mattered that someone helped us or else we’d be dead. And real soon, too.

Well, to say that they helped us turned out to be quite an understatement! Even though we still weren’t free and clear, they ended up doing a hell of a lot more than just helping. They saved us! They faxed in payment to the motel for two nights, and expressed a surprisingly generous amount of money to us here at the motel, too. They sent $300 when we thought they’d send around $50, which would hardly have helped at all.

So now I have seriously mixed emotions where my parents are concerned. They say things happen for a reason. I wonder if this happened because we were meant to be reconnected again. I’ve learned that we can push people away so that they can’t offend or hurt us, but then they can’t love or help us either. I feel for them in light of their problems and am so very grateful for them saving us. It doesn’t undo the horrible things they’ve done to me in the past, but it helps to compensate for some of it. On the other hand, these are still the people who made my life hell and have given me a lifetime of horrible memories, so it’s a real mental tug-of-war for me.

They called back on Thursday, the 11th, to let us know that the money would arrive between 10:00 and noon. The front desk called at 11:30 to let me know it had arrived, but since it was in Tom’s name, I had to let him pick it up after work. This was ok, though, because we still had some food we got with the money his boss lent him.

They never did call back after that and a part of me is hoping that’s just their way of saying, “Ok, we helped pull you out of the quicksand, and now you’re on your own again cuz of how different we are.” Either way, we fully intend to pay them back unless they write back saying not to, although it will take a while. That was another tough decision I had to make; whether or not to give them any contact information. Since she said she didn’t do email, and since I haven’t liked phones since quitting smoking, I decided just to give the UPS address in the 6-page letter I wrote them explaining why we left Oregon, why we chose to come here, what we hoped to accomplish, etc. I asked that they not give the address to Larry or Tammy, explaining that I wanted no contact with them. I said that while there may be safety in numbers on the streets, I truly believed it was just the opposite with relations and that the more people involved, the more likely there’d be some bickering. I doubt Larry would want contact with me any more than I’d want it with him, but Tammy might.

I had to laugh at one point when I remembered Mom asking who I was with. I guess she wondered if I’d dumped Tom for some chick. Well, as I told her, no chance there! I said we were only human and quick to recognize something good-looking when it passed by, but our hearts have remained in the same place. I joked about how they must’ve had their own share of eye candy over the years having been married nearly 60 years now.

Josephina, my favorite housekeeper from New Zealand, who’s getting better looking by the minute, came to do the room on the 11th. She took one look at me and knew something was wrong. I filled her in as best I could with our accents being a bit hard to understand, and she said she lived in her parent’s house with her two sisters, so she couldn’t take me in, but knew someone she could call. I guess the person ran a rooming house. Not exactly the ideal place for us, but if it wasn’t going to cost anything and we were out of choices, so be it, so I gave her the cell number.

She didn’t call until Friday, just when I was beginning to think she was one of those typical people who say they’re going to do something that they don’t. I wondered why she didn’t have the decency to at least let me know if she could help or not. Well, she did let me know after all. She left a message saying she was having trouble reaching anyone, but it would turn out that we wouldn’t need her help, thank God. She returned to clean the room a week later and asked if we ever had to leave, saying she’d been worried. This was after the nightmare finally ended. I gave her some incense as a way of thanking her.

Watch, now that I kind of like her, she’ll either quit or she just won’t be around for a while. All the good-looking or super-nice people end up leaving. She’s not only friendly, but she’s also about 5’6”-5’8”, thin, with dark hair and eyes. She’s a little young, maybe in her late 20s, and has some zits, but is attractive otherwise. She wears her hair in a high-pitched ponytail that she braids, but I’d guess it’d be to the middle of her back when it’s down.

All the while this was going on, I was hoping Jessie was too busy to check her mail and start putting two and two together, just in case we were to make it through the nightmare after all. I didn’t want to worry her.

Come Friday, while I was waiting for him to get back from work, and hopefully with cash from the money order my folks sent, I started to have one of my bad feelings again. I knew he was having difficulty cashing it. I thought it was because he had an Arizona license with an Oregon address, but as he would later tell me, it was because they were having trouble getting ahold of anyone in Florida to verify it. So while I was trying not to panic all over again, he searched the phone book for check-cashing places to call. He called one and they said they’d cash it. So after he got it cashed, he paid for just one night, hoping to set up the desktop the following day so we could book 3 nights for the price of 2 through Hotwire, using the new debit card he got for just $10, called Netspend. He deposited most of the money onto it. This new card should be much better. Unlike the other joke of a card, if anything’s ever wrong with Netspend you can go into any place that sells them and get a new card, and they’re cheaper to use as well. As soon as we can, we’re dropping Wired Plastic like a hot potato!

Needing to get the hell out of this room, we went to Walmart for some groceries. It was nice to be out doing normal things like that. I hoped it was a sign that our lives would soon be back on track. At least the wins were starting to go up again, even though I’d still only gotten small things like shower gel and books.

The next day, Saturday the 13th, I saw the first break in the trees, even though we weren’t officially out of the woods yet.

Tom built a makeshift antenna for the desktop, went online and attempted to transfer half of the money from the Wired Plastic card, which was then up to $850, over to the new card.

I saw that Jessie was starting to wonder what was up with me, whom I dreamt about the night before. I dreamt I was laughing at her because it was snowing on her. I hoped this was a good sign. After all, I couldn’t laugh at her or anyone if I were dead! I chose not to reply just yet. I wanted to wait and see if either the money transfer would go through, or if the new Wired Plastic card would arrive by the deadline they gave us or both. So we had two shots left at a reprieve and days to go before we knew if we’d make it or not.

The suspense was agonizing, but I would learn the true meaning of the word “relief” when Tom called me Monday after work to say that the new Wired Plastic card had indeed finally arrived! In fact, he got two cards. And it was then that I realized that God had answered every single one of my prayers. Every single one!

I paced back and forth in joy, tears of relief streaming down my face, thanking God over and over again.

I then emailed Jessie and only told her we’d been on death row and were just now recovering, and that my parents of all people helped us, and that I’d send her detailed journal accounts once I’d written them up.

I didn’t mean to scare her, but she said I was scaring her and that she’d been about to call to see what was up, and was curious to know how my parents helped, and asked if she could help in any way. That was so sweet of her, but I didn’t think she could as broke as she is herself right now. Besides, I figured we’d be ok at that point. I hope we will be anyway! I really do believe the worst of the curse is over, and that things will slowly get better, but as I told her, I’d like to hear her voice someday, so when we get settled wherever one of these days, we’ll definitely chat by phone. We’re kind of like family as far back as we go. So I gave her a more detailed account of what happened and will send these excerpts once they’re finished.

I had said I wanted to save up whatever the rent ended up being when we got settled someplace, so we’d have money in the event of an emergency. Well, we’re going to save up a hell of a lot more than that if I can help it!

It’s a good thing the Wired Plastic card came because as it turns out, the transfer didn’t go through. The assholes no doubt have Netspend flagged as competitors.

I ended up doing laundry that night in the tub since it had been nearly two weeks since we were able to do laundry. Instead of being all pissed at having to be reduced to having to scrub it by hand, I simply saw it as something that had to be done, and so I did it.

Tom thinks they may start him on the 2nd shift next week with at least a 5% bonus. The only sucky thing is that we couldn’t go to the casino on Wednesday evenings. Every Wednesday, between 6:00 - 8:00, they accept entries for their car giveaway. That’s ok, though, as I learned I can still win big after all.

Tom decided that Wednesdays and Saturdays are good days to stop at the mail place, and he was excited to find an overnight letter from FedEx waiting for him when he went last Saturday. Well, I won a 32” flat-panel LCD HDTV! Thank God I started entering sweeps in his name too, or else he’d have had to waste time and gas coming back here to pick me up to sign and notarize things so we could get it back in time. He did a 2-day express thing, not wanting to trust the PO, knowing it could take a week or more that way. It was a short-running premium sweep that ran for less than a month, and 30 people got TVs. I wish all sweeps could be that short-running and have that many winners!

I also won a coupon for a free burger at one of Tom’s favorite fast-food places, which he got to enjoy.

The only dark cloud hanging over us right now is me being worried that all we’ll be able to afford is an apartment. Especially since I found I was wrong in thinking the average house rents for around $800. That’s only what the average 2-bedroom apartment rents for. The average house rents for $1,400. I hope that if we can’t have a house, because I still say we’ll never get to live where we want to anyway, we can at least find a duplex where the garages or carports run in between the two places, and that it doesn’t have a shared yard. I’m sick of sharing this and sharing that! We’ve shared enough already.

Another thing is the people next door who’ve been there for over a week now. Why is it that everyone who ends up over there in the inside room is noisy? Guess it just goes to show that that’s just how most people are no matter what. They’re not too bad, but they get annoying enough at times. I can’t figure out when they sleep. They’re definitely up all night. That much is obvious. I hear scattered thunks and clunks from over there all through the night, and when I put my ear to the wall I can hear music playing. They don’t wake me up when I have the sound machine on and my earplug in, but I still hope they’ll leave soon, even though I know we’ll get someone else in there soon enough doing the same thing.

The only other minor annoyance is that they’re always doing something around here. This is typical of motels and apartments, but first they had to change the TV channels twice, then the inspector came to check the smoke detectors and sprinklers, then they were supposedly coming back to fix them, but as it would turn out, this room was fine and not on their fix list. Yesterday they were checking doors. They want to lower the metal plate on the outside of it so there isn’t such a big gap underneath. This would be fine with me and I’m mostly on days now, but if they want to do anything else after this, I just may let them know they’re becoming pests and that I’d like them to wait till we’re gone.

Continuing on with our 11-day nightmare: We left the casino an hour or two before sunrise and went to a Walmart parking lot. I lay in the cab while he went in to pee and check out camping equipment. It wasn’t until 6:00, when we went to storage again for something we’d forgotten, that I was finally able to get a few minutes of sleep while he was going through things.

We then had to wait till 11:00 for what seemed to be the most promising of pawnshops to open. While Tom was dealing with them, I remembered Mary’s saying that the more we alienate God, the more chaos we invite into our lives, and wondered if perhaps she could be right after all. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so quick to laugh at that one, I thought, so I prayed to God to please give us a break. I told Him He could continue to hate us, but just please, please give us a break at least temporarily! I promised never to cuss Him out again if He’d just ease up on us. Well, we were still many days away from our reprieve, but as Tom said, it’s important I keep my word to Him because there had to be some reason someone was suddenly giving us $65 for a diamond no one else would touch since it was uncut.

What was funny, though not at first, was that Tom had to come and get me to pawn the stuff in my name because he left his license at the casino which he picked up the next day, and he certainly didn’t want to say this in front of the guys in the store, figuring they wouldn’t be as sympathetic if he did. So that day, Sunday the 7th, we pawned the diamond, the camera and the laptop. I hated to pawn the laptop, but it bought us a night back in the motel and in the same room, too.

I met Michelle for the first time. She’s a heavy redhead who didn’t give us much of a deal other than to charge us for one person instead of two, which costs $70 instead of $40 if you don’t pay for the room online through Hotwire or one of the other sites that cuts deals with various motels. She also said I could wait in the office at check-out time until Tom got back, hopefully with the card, and hopefully to pay for additional nights here.

So back we went to this room, which now seemed so much bigger. I guess being cramped in a tiny truck can make most rooms seem bigger. After just 45 minutes of sleep in 30 hours, I slept on and off for 14 hours. It was so nice to be back in a room with a bed, some space, a shower, sink and toilet, but I was paranoid about being thrown on the streets again.

It sucked not having the laptop. Between not having that or much food to eat and my nerves being stretched to the max, all I could do was just lay in bed and fret, though I also prayed for help like crazy, too. Each day Tom returned without the card made me feel more and more doomed, although I continued to keep my word about not cussing God out.

Although we had a roof over our heads for the night, Tom didn’t have the gas money to make it to work on Monday or to buy us food. For several days in a row, we had barely 500 calories of food a day, and I was reminded of just how much I hate dieting and probably never will again. I’d be 200 pounds before I went through anything half as terrifying and stressful again! I definitely did lose weight, though, and wouldn’t be surprised if I dropped to 120. I’m up 5-10 pounds or so, but my tummy’s still messed up. I haven’t had the runs since the nightmare ended, but I’m not back to normal in that department yet either.

Each day I’d go through whatever dreams I remembered, mentally discarding most of them into my mind’s wastebasket. But one dream stood out and made me wonder if there was a message in it. It was a dream where I was congratulating a woman on having twins. It took me a while to figure out what it could mean. Then I wondered if it could mean life. The cycle of life. Was it a sign that life went on and that it would for us as well?

The next day, Monday the 8th, Tom used what little gas was in the truck to sell the autographed guitar for $20 and the Lasergrips gun sight for $40. We didn’t know this, or else we’d have sold the diamond, but that pawnshop buys things as well as lets you pawn them. The guy said we could pawn it for $20 or sell it for $40, so naturally, we sold it.

The 3 things we wanted back were the camera, the GPS and the laptop. I’m glad to say I got the laptop back a few days ago! They gave us 4 months to get the stuff. I’m going to let the diamond go, but we’ll be back for the camera soon. It was $93 to get the laptop back and will be $21 for the camera, and $30 for the GPS, which has been pawned elsewhere, and which he plans to buy back soon.

So now we had another night paid for, but still not enough for food, and definitely not enough gas to get into work, so Tom called both the temp agency and the card company and was now getting different stories from them. The temp agency was now saying that yes, they could stop the direct deposit, but not that week. The card company was now saying they could express us a new card if we didn’t get it by Monday and also that we could transfer money if we could get into the account. Yet when Tom specifically asked about expressing the card the week before, they said they couldn’t do that.

Nonetheless, Tom had enough gas to get into work, but not back again. He was worried about losing his job at this point, but when he called and spoke to the boss lady early Tuesday morning, she said she’d give him the money to get back. In fact, she really surprised us with her generosity and gave him $100! Thank God people find him as likable as they find me weird, eccentric and even scary!

Despite her generosity in which Tom plans to reimburse her for tomorrow, we were far from out of the woods, and things were about to really come to a head. The $100 bought us a roof over our heads for Tuesday night and got us a little more food and gas. After these things were paid for, however, we were right back to square one. Completely broke.

Here we are, back in the land of the living after being on death row for 11 days, and probably closer to death than ever before in our lives. Of all the things we thought of that could go wrong upon coming here, we missed one. I would’ve liked to have documented the nightmare as it unfolded, but it was either not convenient to do so or I was just too distraught. This has got to be my biggest gap in entries in years! It’s been 15 days. We were granted a reprieve on the 15th, Mary’s 30th birthday, and since then I’ve been recuperating, gaining back my strength and sanity, as well as catching up on sweeps. They did go broadband, after all, so now I can do the dailies and Netwinner normally. My OLS membership expired on the 2nd and I decided to renew it last night since they’ve really improved the connection here.

I will try to remember all the things we did, felt, and thought during the hell we went through as best I can. The real hell didn’t begin till Saturday the 6th. I know I wrote that I dreamt the money wasn’t there on the 4th, my 10-year quit-smoking anniversary, even though I didn’t know why. Also, I sent Tom a text message about it, even though it did no good. Yeah, that’s the sucky part of being psychic. Just because some of us can see bad things coming doesn’t mean we can do anything to stop them. I really had trouble sleeping there for a while too, even when it was quiet. Not just because of the killer stress, but because I was afraid of what I might dream. Tom handled things well, but I was a basket case all the way, filled with fear, sadness, anger and stress. It was unbelievable! I had the runs 3 times a day, my ear was killing me, and it felt like a cement paver was sitting on my chest. The stress took its toll on me more so than the lack of food did. It really made those little things I’d complain about seem like no big deal, and those “big” things like the door slamming, the microwave’s carousel not working, the refrigerator leaking (although they fixed that) became such little nuisances I longed to have back as my worst problems, along with the waiting game, not knowing how long it’d take to get into a place.

These types of ordeals really make you see things differently and want to change some of your ways for the better and trust me, it was a life-changing experience! We can never know for sure, but I have my theories as to why it all happened. Yes, I’ve learned a lot from this horrible experience, like how important it is to scatter your money, get receipts, spend less and save more (I swear I’m going to be as obsessed with saving as I was with shopping), and never ever cuss out God no matter how pissed you get at your situation and no matter how unfair and cruel it may seem!!! I think this may be a big part of why we were so cursed, but like I said, we can never know for sure. After all, innocent children fall under even more serious curses, yet what did they supposedly ever do to deserve it? Tom thinks the queen started having health problems cuz she got pissed at God when Dad died, but who knows? It could’ve been just age and stress. It could’ve also been that someone she pissed off had a nasty influence on her as well.

We were scheduled to check out on Saturday the 6th. With not much more than a few bucks to our names, we went to the mail place pretty sure that the new card would be there. But it wasn’t. So now we were officially homeless and my worst fears had now come true, even though our stuff was safely locked away in storage (thank God this didn’t happen on the 1st!) and he had a job. What made it even scarier was knowing that the following Monday, the 8th, was a holiday! And it would’ve been unbearably terrifying had Tom let me in on a little secret. Normally I’d want to strangle him for holding back, but he did the right thing in this case. You see, had he told me that he was told that the card wouldn’t be coming till between the 10th and 15th, which usually means the last day they give you, it would’ve pretty much stamped out any remaining hesitations I had about suicide. I didn’t think we were going to have a choice for a while there anyway. Meaning, I thought we were dead for sure either way. I thought that even if we wanted to live, there would be no way we could and that we’d eventually starve off and die. So in the beginning I thought it may be better to get it over with in the 2-3 minutes to 2-3 hours they say it takes to die from carbon monoxide in the way we were planning to kill ourselves with it, rather than slowly die in the streets of hunger, nerves and exhaustion. I’ve had my share of nightmares before and as rough as they were, my survival wasn’t so on the line like it was this time around. That “trigger-happy psycho” wasn’t just teasing us with just a close call. There really, really appeared to be no way out at first! Even jail was easier than this because I knew there was an end to it sooner or later.

So anyway, the new card had been sent to Oregon, then returned because they don’t forward 1st class mail. The screw-ups at Wired Plastic, which is the company the card was from, didn’t even have the decency to call and ask why it was returned. It was so frustrating knowing that the money was there, we just couldn’t access it! To make matters worse, they were paying Tom via direct deposit at work and the equally screwed up idiots at the temp agency said they couldn’t stop the next check from being directly deposited and cut him a check unless the card was canceled altogether. But we couldn’t cancel a card we didn’t have!

The only thing that came Saturday was a pair of running shoes I won, but I was too freaked out to pay much attention to them. When the card didn’t come that day and we were out of money, food and a place to stay, I wished like never before that Jessie or Paula were local so I could beg for a piece of their living room floor in exchange for me cooking, cleaning, babysitting, and Tom fixing whatever needed fixing. But all those who gave a damn about us were either far away or in jail, and we were on our own. There were no little corners of anyone’s living room floor to run to.

The plan was to find a place secluded enough to kill ourselves in the back of the truck that night, but we never could find such a place. No one would notice the coals glowing, but the way they flare up initially certainly would’ve drawn unwanted attention and intervention.

Unsure of when we’d be able to kill ourselves, we first stopped at storage to pick up things we thought we could sell and to dump off things that were useless and in our way. Remember, this truck is very small. As I stood there looking at our stuff, it pissed me off to think that someone would get what cost us thousands for just $87 once we were dead and the stuff was auctioned off. I had the urge to start smashing things, figuring I’d make our deaths less profitable if I could help it, but never bothered to.

Next we set out to sell some of those “worthless” wins I’ll never again call worthless. He’d already pawned the GPS, so we had to do our best to find places to sell stuff. We ended up selling between 30-50 CDs and DVDs for an amazing $76! Thank God Tom went in and asked if they’d take them first because that’s when he saw the sign that said: All CDs and DVDs must be used, and no, you cannot go outside and remove the shrinkwrap!

While we waited for them to go through the stuff, we hopped across the street so I could use the bathroom at a convenience store, my anger towards God growing by the minute as Tom struggled to keep his sandals from falling apart, something I didn’t think he deserved to be doing at his age and with how hard he works. Some employees had smocks and coats hanging in the corner of the bathroom. I checked the pockets but didn’t find anything good other than a knife used for cutting boxes open.

Despite being worried about how we were going to make it until the card came, I was glad to be out of the motel and free of the door slamming and things like that. Besides, I figured it would be too hard for me to return, knowing that I’d only be paranoid about getting thrown on the streets again. Yet as I would learn, it’s amazing how you can miss the very things you’d been hoping to escape, and in just a few hours, too!

We stopped for some fast food, then tried to home in on free WiFi internet access somewhere, but were unable to do so. We wanted to find a Walmart that allows RVs to park in their parking lot, but as I reminded Tom, this wasn’t jail. Meaning that the security trucks weren’t going to shine their lights in people’s vehicles looking for anyone who might be sleeping in them. Still, we knew we had to worry more about them kicking us out than we did about anyone harming us. I was too furious for anyone to do much damage to us anyway!

We first wasted time and gas checking out a rest stop over towards Reno that was almost as high in elevation as Klamath. It felt like we were back there all over again. The sun hadn’t fully set by the time we got up there yet it was already freezing. We knew that if it could be in the 40s at that time, it was certainly going to be beyond freezing in the morning!

So we left “Oregon” and headed for the casino, figuring there’d be too much activity around for us to really stand out in any way. First, though, we used some of the money we made selling stuff to get some food and gas, and of course there seemed to suddenly be mattress stores on every block! Once we got to the far end of the casino’s parking lot, we moved some stuff into the cab and tried to make the back as comfortable as possible. Although it had been warm in the afternoon, it was now pretty chilly. It wasn’t too bad with me sandwiched between the comforter, but it wasn’t exactly toasty either, and we still had a lot of shit back there in the way. So we lay huddled together, listening to the trains and people passing by. One couple looked towards the back of the truck at one point but didn’t appear to notice us.

Tom was afraid to fall asleep and start snoring, so he went inside the casino and played a penny machine for a buck, so he wouldn’t stand out in any odd way. He also wanted me to have a chance to get some rest, but I was way too wound up to do so. As I lay there cramped in that small, old, uncomfortable, miserable truck, I mentally cussed God out like never before. I hated Him so intensely and was literally shaking with rage. I didn’t understand why we were being singled out and picked on like we were. We were just two people who only wanted a modest home that was at least relatively peaceful, but even that was too much to ask for. I even wondered if we were being punished for not settling for an apartment, since I’ve always believed that’s where God wants me, with plenty of people and chaos, yet we tried to settle for that upon moving down here and it didn’t do us any good.

As much as I knew it wouldn’t do us any good, I started beating myself up for not staying in Phoenix and just dealing with their shit next door. We would’ve been miserable with all the chaos, and I never cared for that house itself, but it would’ve been the safer misery, considering that the house would’ve been all paid for years ago.

Unable to get comfortable with the floor of the truck being so rippled, I went into the casino. It was smoky, but warmer in there. I couldn’t find Tom right away, so I had him paged. Together we went into the same restaurant we ate in the last time we were there and got coffee and water for me and soda for him.

At one point we got to talking to our waitress, Dee, about our situation. She offered us some hot soup at her cost, but we declined, as nice as it was of her to offer. She suggested we check out KOA (Kampgrounds of America), saying that they did have showers and that it was free as long as you didn’t have an RV or a camper.

Afterward, Tom said he doubted it was free. He and his family camped for many summers when he was a kid, and he said they’d always avoid KOAs because they were more expensive. The research we finally did later on proved him right, too. Even with just a regular vehicle, we couldn’t have gotten anything cheaper than $30 a day. The state campground charges $15 a day, and we may check into this more. We’re not sure yet at this time just what we’re going to do. It’s one of those catch-22s. Yes, it would be cheaper to camp out, but we’d have to invest in some camping gear, and we’d both be put out big time. The biggest problem would be not being able to go online. I could give Jessie my username and password to check for win notices, but we wouldn’t be able to sell things on eBay, and we’d be put out in lots of other ways, too. So campgrounds are up in the air right now. I do know one thing, though, cheaper or not, I hate camping!

The truck itself was something I came to have mixed emotions for. I hate the heap of shit, but there’s certainly no way we could’ve done anything without it! You really do need a vehicle to get around a place this big. Without it, there’d be no way to sell things, for him to get to work or a place for us to stay when we couldn’t stay here.

Scratch that last sentence. The question is will we be gone tomorrow? And not to a house, but to wherever they’d bury us. Yeah, God’s really having a field day torturing us. The other question is, is it to compensate us for something good to come at work? To prevent us from something good at work? Or just to punish us simply for breathing, as usual?

See, yesterday at work they came out and asked him how soon he could start working second shift. Even though he had come to doubt there was any real future at the place, and still isn’t sure there is, he told them he could start right away. He’s been wanting second or 3rd shift all along so he could have time during business hours for other things. Once he got asked this, he said he knew something bad was going to happen.

Then there was my nasty dream premonition come true. Just like he sometimes gets solutions to problems in his sleep, I have dream premonitions. I dreamt the money wasn’t on the card, and I sent Tom a text message to let him know because I didn’t “feel” it was just a dream brought on by stress. As it turns out, the money’s there, but the card expired. They sent the new card to the old place right when we moved, and when it was returned to them, they didn’t even have the decency to let us know. So Tom called them and they said a new card was sent out Monday via 1st class mail, yet when he checked the mail place on Thursday, it wasn’t there. 1st class takes 3 days, so maybe it didn’t get picked up till Tuesday?

He then ran out of gas a mile away from here and had to park in the parking lot of a Jack-n-the-Box, the fast food place that’s all over the west except for K-Falls, Oregon. He walked back and we went hungry for the rest of the night since we were virtually out of food and living check to check until next week when we estimated we could finally start saving. But then we had to have some wonderful divine interference throw us this curveball just like I knew it would.

The stress has been a killer! I don’t know how many more of these security threats I can take, and having our lives be on the line every few days to a few weeks like it has been. The poster spirit I call Susie said the card would arrive today and that things would now start gradually improving just like they gradually went downhill. Tom said that made sense since we’ve now gotten over the major hurdles that could cause us to end up on the streets, thus killing ourselves to get out of having to suffer that kind of life. He pointed out that he was wrong about the truck having an internal engine problem (it would’ve broken down by now), and that of all the things that go out on vehicles, it’s fine, and that the new card will be good for 3 years if we can ever get it in time.

But I’m not convinced. If there’s one thing I’ve learned lately it’s that it doesn’t take much to really turn a person’s life upside down, if not destroy their life completely. I’m sick to death of having my very existence threatened and struggling for the simplest fucking things in life! Why are the barest of necessities such a struggle to get lately?! Why can’t God or whatever evil that’s trying to drive me crazy and maybe even to our deaths just leave us the fuck alone and go pick on someone else?! I just want a decent place to live, but we can’t even have that. Not anytime soon, if ever at all. I’m thoroughly convinced there’s no place for us. There really isn’t. A simple, peaceful house is just a dream. Just a total dream that can never happen. It’s either settle or die. If we’re not willing to live in misery, our only other choice is to die. And we’ll have to die if the card isn’t there tomorrow for damn sure because we wouldn’t be able to stay anywhere, and he couldn’t get to work anyway.

On Thursday evening I gave him the couple of bucks I had in my purse and he walked back to the truck to put gas in it to drive it back here. He didn’t feel it was worth risking running out of gas by going to the mail place today since we don’t have to check out till tomorrow. Instead, today he walked a total of 6 miles to and from Walmart and got us some food with the remaining few bucks he had. When he got back he called the mail place and the guy said I had a Mary letter and “two pieces of junk mail.” Well, what gave us a slight bit of hope was knowing that the envelope the card was in would look like junk mail. Most cash and credit card envelopes have the address of the person it’s going to in a window, then usually just a PO Box for a return. Logically speaking, if they sent it to the right address, which Tom verified online, and if God didn’t make sure it got lost or went to someone else, and it was sent 1st class on Monday or even Tuesday as they said, then there’s no reason it shouldn’t be there by tomorrow if it isn’t already.

We would still rather not find it’s not there when he goes to check tomorrow and be forced to kill ourselves, especially since Tom wouldn’t want to do that as much as I would. I’m honored that someone could love me enough to not want me to die alone, but I would feel more like I was murdering him, than that it was a mutual thing, not that he doesn’t get fed up with life enough of the time himself.

So tomorrow he’s going to see if we can check out an hour later, which he thinks they’ll let us do. He said he’s been in the office when others have asked to check out an hour or two later and were told they could. Also, Michelle works weekends, and she’s turned out to be the nicest so far. So he’s going to explain the problem with the card to her, hopefully get us a little extension, then go out and see if the card’s there. If it isn’t, we have stuff to pawn so there’s enough gas for killing ourselves tomorrow night. The last thing we want to do is botch things up and make our lives even worse. According to Tom’s research, he thinks we’d be able to go quicker and less painfully in the truck as opposed to the bathroom here. We’d also have the truck’s exhaust, too. Many have killed themselves by putting a hose extension on their exhausts which they piped into an enclosed area.

The stress is really getting to me! We’ve now had half a dozen or so crises and it’s scary as hell, but mostly I’m depressed, and even more so I’m angry. I’m sick of being picked on like this! What have Tom and I ever done that was so bad to deserve a life of hell like this? I just want to thumb my nose at society and live a sheltered life in a nice peaceful little house and only go out once every week or two, but no. I can’t even have that much. The more I try to avoid people, the more I get stuck with them and thrown into where there are plenty of them. God would just love me for settling for an apartment with tons of people and chaos, but He’s not getting His way on that one! He will have to drive us to our deaths first because we’re through settling!

I feel the same as I would if some trigger-happy psycho were breaking in here every so often and teasing me with my life, holding a gun to my head, making it as if he was going to shoot me, then pulling the gun away, and back and forth and back and forth.

I’m torn between wanting to live and wanting to die, but am perfectly ready to go if the card’s not there. Anything’s better than the streets, even death. However, a part of me wants to live to see if we ever do make it out of here, even if we still have to live on someone else’s driveway and with their dogs and music, too. I also want to listen to my stereo again, sleep in my own bed, and enjoy the rest of my belongings that’s been in storage. I miss high-speed internet without all the damn crashing and hang-ups.

But I’m also so damn tired of life. Totally, honestly tired of it! A part of me hopes the card’s not there so I can die and miss out on a lot of shitty things. Our lives can never be what we want them to be, I don’t like the idea of growing older, fatter, and maybe arthritic or developing cancer, diabetes, and whatever other health problems. I don’t want to live to have to deal with another stress-filled, scary crisis. Sooner or later it’s not going to be just a “close call.” I don’t want to live to deal with my teeth, even though they’ve been amazingly good to me since we moved. I don’t want to deal with my ear, even though that’s been better since we started oiling it. I don’t want to live here long enough to find out what my new health problems will be that I seem to get whenever I move. I don’t want to listen to people’s shit and struggle financially.

If the card is there, however, then we’ll at least have a choice. We’ll probably pay for another week here, see what happens at work, which we’re both curious about and then who knows? We talked about him working part-time either at night or during the daytime if they really do put him on second shift, and also selling plasma. Tom’s done it before and says it’s boring because you have to sit hooked up to machines for a couple of hours, but they’ll pay around $15 and you can do it up to twice a week. If the price was right, I wouldn’t mind doing this when my schedule permitted it. I could read or listen to my iPod while I was doing it.

A part of me wishes people didn’t need to piss, shit and take showers, and that I wasn’t such a light sleeper. Then we could live in the truck and really get into a place fast. We could park at Walmart when he wasn’t working, and at his job, of course, when he was.

I don’t know what to make of the dream I had recently of winning big. Tom said if I can have dream premonitions like I did about the card, then why not that?

Because God doesn’t usually want us having much money, that’s why, is all I can think of. And if He’s decided He wants us to die now, the card won’t be there tomorrow, and this will be the last entry I ever write, just one day after my 10th quit-smoking anniversary.

So many we-should-haves run through my mind, even though I know it’s pointless. We “should have” stayed in Phoenix and taken the safer misery. Yes, it would be noisy as hell, but the house would’ve been all paid for years ago. Noise is annoying, but can’t usually hurt us. Or maybe we “should have” stayed in the Oregon dump. Yes, it was too cold, I hated the snow, he hated his job, it could be noisy, the insurance and tax laws were fucked up, we hated the house and the restrictive hours and lack of stores and restaurants, but the rent was cheap, he made a lot of money, and we had so few bad days during the two years we were there. We had fun with Tinkerbell and the shopping sprees we’d go on.

Tom had been curious to check online obituaries. I thought you had to pay for those, but while most don’t tell you the cause of death or who they’re survived by, there was a 2005 obit in Phoenix for a Raymond which Tom thinks is his brother. Ray, who would’ve been 57 in ‘05, had health problems caused by a fall he had many years ago. Then he contracted hepatitis C before they knew it even existed from a blood transfusion.

The guy on the end broke his peaceful record for an hour or so yesterday before Tom got in by having a couple of chicks visit him that was loud. Every 10 minutes or so they’d come out of the room and hang out close to our door. I finally got curious enough to see what the hell they were doing, and they were smoking since they have a non-smoking room too, and can’t smoke in there. He said he was sorry if they were too noisy, then they took off. I later knocked on his door to see if he’d buy the gunsight for $20, which I’d have let him know was worth $250 and that he could sell it for more if he wanted to, yet he wasn’t there.

They did the inspection thing today and that went quickly and quieter than I thought it would. I had been up an hour before they came, too.

Since Mary’s in jail and Paula wouldn’t know what to do with the damn thing, I left a note in my address file, as well as on my desktop calendar, just in case someone searches this thing for clues as to why we killed ourselves if we do, to ship it to Jessie.

I’m pleased to say that the rude assholes next door checked out this morning. I don’t know if Michelle spoke to them or not, but either way, they were obnoxious last night, too. I don’t know what the extent of it was because as soon as they started in with their shit, I threw the sound machine on and an earplug in my ear. I hope it stays empty for a while over there! I wish all these people could be like the guy on the end. Then it wouldn’t matter if every single room was occupied.

The pretty housekeeper from New Zealand came at noon and was soon joined by the Indian housekeeper. I wonder why they work in pairs so much of the time. They’re going to hope they can do so when we leave, cuz if that wonderful day ever arrives, the place will be filthy. The microwave will be trashed, the inside of the fridge will need wiping down, and the toaster and coffeemaker will need a thorough cleaning. On top of that, the dust in here will probably be an inch thick, and there’s still some bedding on the floor in the corner where the clothes are hanging that got kicked out of Tinkerbell’s cage.

I learned how to say hello in both Indi and Tongan. In Indian it’s kaysay, in Tongan it’s malolaylay. I’m sure they have different ways of writing the words, so I just wrote them out phonetically.

We weren’t back online till 2:30 this afternoon, and it said it was high-speed, though it’s not much faster. It’s still horribly unreliable too, so I doubt I’ll renew my OLS membership until we’re gone.

Tom’s now pretty sure he doesn’t want to be hired on where he’s working, so I’m surprised they don’t do so because of how good we are at getting what we don’t want. Unfortunately, it’s already coming up on Thursday and he’s only got 3 hours of overtime this week. He needs at least 10 a week to be right about us getting out of here in November. If he gets to work on Saturday, then we’ll be ok.

I wish I could work those extra 10 hours for him! Even if it was just to haul up carts of towels and sheets when I was awake to fold them.

The good news is that I definitely don’t see us here in January. I strongly vibe we’ll be gone by then. The question is if we’ll be gone in November or December.

The good news is that the people next door left. The bad news is that we’ve been replaced with even noisier people who checked in last night. After a few hours of banging and them coming and going, I knew they wouldn’t be leaving anytime soon, not that it should take that long to set up house. They’re just your typical rude, inconsiderate, obnoxious assholes.

In other good/bad news, my incense came a day early, so that’s good. What isn’t is that I haven’t been able to get online all day. Michelle at the front desk said they’re still working on it. I mentioned next door and she said she’d talk to them, so we’ll see how they take to being complained on. The only thing that kept me from calling the office after midnight last night when they were still banging away was my sound machine and earplug. As long as I lay in bed with them I couldn’t hear much, but sitting here along the dividing wall was totally obnoxious. As I’ve been asking since 1992 now, what did I do to deserve to be so cursed with noise???

I’m also being pestered lately. First one of the housekeepers started to come in as I was finishing up peeing, thinking the room was vacant because the drapes were open. Then a guy knocked. He apparently had the wrong room. This happened yesterday. Tomorrow I have to hope the housekeeper doesn’t come too early. Then on Thursday or Friday, so they came to the door to let me know today, that they have to do their annual smoke detector and sprinkler inspection and we just have to be here at that time. So I’m trying to keep my schedule on days as long as I can hold it there.

Later…

As if we don’t have enough to deal with, the truck was broken into sometime last night. They pried the back open and stole the printer, the jump starter, and some tools. Fortunately, they missed some items of higher value, but still, ain’t God great to us? And I’m sure the little thief will not only receive full protection from the bastard above but probably something like a $1500 winning lottery ticket, too. And you know that if we were the type to break into vehicles, we’d not only get caught, but we’d get a sentence fit for a murderer, too! So Tom emptied the stuff that didn’t get stolen into storage and is now parking somewhere else.

Oh, they also stole his portfolio and birth certificate. He called and asked, and fortunately, no one can do anything with just a birth certificate alone. They’d need a photo ID, too. Still, it’s one more curse on us and more money to have to pay when he goes to order a new one.