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.