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.