Downgrading

I will start this post with the email I sent to my parents this morning regarding my car, as I don't want to re-type and/or rehash everything again:

So here's the latest update on the car -- we got the estimate yesterday from the steering column repair guy here in town, and it's pretty much along the lines of what I was expecting. Yes, the parts for the steering column and ignition/switch themselves are pretty cheap and are in stock (maybe $100-125 total) and the labor isn't incredibly bad for it either. However, it looks like they damaged the entire turn signal array/mechanism as well, which means the wheel needs to be replaced (another $12-15 or so for a compatible wheel). The problem, however, isn't in getting the parts but in getting a key that goes with those parts. Since my car's anti-theft device is in the ignition switch (which, I might add, is the first thing the thugs ripped off/cut out) and corresponds with a security microchip in my ignition key, we'd have to get a steering column and ignition that already had the key with it ready to go -- otherwise the car would need to be completely re-keyed and that would add another $150-200 to the total. It's substantially harder to find one with a matching key set for it, so the estimate for everything is anywhere between $250 and $450-500.

The other option, of course, is to sell the car. The people who the used parts come from (U Pull It Omaha) buys vehicles to add to their used parts inventory. You can fill out a form online and they'll make you an offer, come to you, tow the car for free, and write you a check then and there. They're a really reputable company and we have friends who have used them before not only to get parts, but to sell their cars. Therefore, over the holiday weekend, I'm going to see what they'd offer me for the car as-is (since the rest of it is in good working order and it has two new tires with less than fifteen miles on them). If their offer is more than it would cost to fix it, or at least comparable, I'll just sell it to them and put the money towards something else as long as it has four wheels, doors, and a heater. At this point I really don't care as we're going into winter and I need a car.

This pretty much sums it all up, to be honest with you.

Daisy has told me that we can do whatever I wish; if we want to try to fix it regardless, we can, if that's what I so choose. If not, we can get me something else. If I do have to get something else, I am being honest -- I really don't care what it is as long as it runs, has heat, and I can drive it to and from work. If nothing else I'm sure I could find a Sunfire or Neon or something like that which I could purchase relatively cheaply and drive it until I can afford something else. At this point it's not about what kind of car I'd want, but what I could get. Believe me, I have wants, but none of them are anywhere near our available price range, and because of our current credit card debt we don't qualify for a car loan right now. We checked. 

So. Those are really our options. Before all this happened, we'd originally planned to get me a new car sometime in the spring once it warmed up, as we would've been able to save enough money by then and have our credit cards paid down more, enough to where that would be a feasible option. Now? Yeah, it's been bumped up and it's no longer feasible to wait. Obviously, this puts us in a rather tight spot. Plus, there's the issue of my student loans coming due in about two weeks as well, so...yeah.

I'm not messing with any of it until I'm off for my "weekend," as I don't have the time or patience to otherwise fuck with it until then. We'll wait and see what happens.

Middle Fingers, Part IV: Holding Patterns

I've made it no secret here in my blog over the years how much I love my car. She is like a child to me, the one thing I have that nobody can take away (aside from the cats, of course). The Monte Carlo is the first vehicle I've ever had that I've owned outright, name on the title, no payments, leases, or anything like that. Therefore, when anyone touches the car aside from me or my wife -- and especially when a group of thugs tries to steal it (not once, but twice) and ends up heavily damaging it in the process -- it's a huge violation. I basically feel like my car was raped. To an extent, it was, depending on how one looks at it. That may not be the best analogy, and I would imagine that rape survivors may scoff or be offended by that analogy, but look at my ignition:

This took time. This took effort. Wasted time and effort, of course, since the first thing they did was cut off the one electronic piece that would actually let them start the car, but still. That's like beating a dead horse.

Anyway, to continue from where I left off last, the car is undriveable (of course) even with its key. I texted my coworkers on Friday afternoon to make sure that the car was still there before I went to work, and they confirmed that it was -- so the first thing I did when I got to work on Friday was schedule it to be towed back home to our apartment parking lot. The scheduling of this was perfectly fine -- AAA allows you to do it online, type in details of what you need, etc etc, and they give you a timeframe estimate there on the website once you schedule it. That was easy; however, getting the car out of that lot was, well, not.

I'll remind you that the one part of the car that makes it able to do anything was completely destroyed. Without being able to even turn it on, I can't shift it out of park. It was parked with its nose up against a treeline, so it's not like the truck could've gotten up in front of it to just lift it and pull it out. It had to be towed from behind, which is a much harder job that requires the car to be lifted and an extra set of roller wheels attached on each side in the front in order to get it out of there. Daisy thought I was being irrational by having it towed home immediately after I got to work, but the fact is that I get to work at 3, and we only have daylight until 5-ish. Not only would the tow driver need to be able to see to get the car out of there, but I wasn't leaving it there after dark again so that the thugs could possibly come back and try to get it a third time. No, I was getting that car home safely ASAP, and at that moment I didn't care who it inconvenienced (read: Daisy, who had to be awake early that afternoon to not only get me to work, but to tell the tow driver a space to put it in once it got home). So no, at that time I didn't particularly care -- if the thugs came back a third time for it, I'm sure they would've found a way to get it out of there even if they had to tow it themselves. The damage on it already isn't covered by insurance, and neither is theft -- even if it can't be fixed, if it's actually successfully stolen, I can't even sell it and get something out of it. So yeah, pardon my "irrationality."

The car was towed home safely and put back into our apartment parking lot. I thanked the tow guy profusely, and he told me that he didn't think the damage looked incredibly bad -- it looked pretty fixable. Once it was home, Daisy took the pictures of it, one of which I shared above, in order to get them sent off to a shop who specializes in ignitions and steering columns here in Omaha. We've been told by multiple sources that the mechanic there is the best in town for that stuff, both on quality of work and price. We've yet to hear back from him yet; however, I have looked up replacement parts for the car to have an idea of how much these things would be to replace outright -- from U-Pull-it Omaha's site a new steering column with airbag is $69, without airbag $49. An ignition switch is $12. A new steering wheel, if the mechanics in mine is too damaged to use, is $11 or something like that. All of that is do-able, even with whatever labor costs the mechanic may charge. It may suck, but it's do-able. Better than that, all of the parts appear to be in stock.

Right now we just appear to be in a holding pattern more than anything else; as we've not heard back from the mechanic yet, Daisy is going to call him this afternoon once I go to work to see what he says. And since the car is "safe" at home, I'm not too concerned about it right now. I say "safe" because, as you'll recall, it was also broken into once here in our parking lot. Not that there's anything left in it now to take out of it, of course, unless a thief wanted half a bottle of radiator stop-leak or a two-year old air freshener tree hanging off my rearview mirror, I mean. I took the insurance card and registration out of it and brought it back upstairs for the time being as well, because not only was I relieved that it was still there, but because one can never be too safe.

As an aside, when I had my car towed home, the other car the thieves had stolen (and left there running with a screwdriver in the ignition) was still in the lot next to mine, though it was no longer running at the time. I didn't get a good look at it, honestly. It was a red, mid-90s SUV like a Blazer or Jimmy or something. I don't know if the cops turned it off when Daisy gave her report, or if it just ran out of gas in the hours between -- but it was still there when Daisy went to the gas station the next night, and when she got back twenty minutes later it was gone. So, it appears the thieves did come back to get it. No tow truck would've picked it up at 1AM, and Daisy says she was only gone for 20 minutes. Because of this, she apologized for snapping at me over my "irrationality" earlier, and told me she knew I'd feel vindicated. Ironically, the one thing I did notice about that car next to mine is that it had two AAA stickers on the back glass, one on each side.

With nothing else that can be done for the moment (and no more money to afford anything else repairs-wise until after we get paid on Black Friday, paying rent and bills first), we wait. We go about our lives as per the usual. Despite the stress caused by this bullshit, I've actually been in a decent mood all week (for the most part). Last night we went to see Big Hero 6 and did a little Christmas shopping -- and to some extent, it was therapeutic. Our work schedules this week are altered from the usual, of course, due to Thanksgiving -- one of only five or six days per year that our business actually closes down -- and I get Thursday off. We all have to clock out before midnight on Wednesday night, to be honest with you, as it'll screw up the time system otherwise. Most of us will be working on Black Friday, including Daisy and myself, on what is historically one of the craziest days for the year or the most silent. It's a flip of the coin, really. If a major retailer's systems go down on Friday? Oh, we're boned. Otherwise? Crickets.

"Here's the thing," I told one of our coworkers on Saturday, "if it's busy, good; we'll be there, we'll be working, it'll be a normal Friday afternoon. If it's quiet? Well, then we're there and we'll get paid to get a reprieve from the normal Friday onslaught of craziness. Either way, there's only going to be so much we can do anyhow on a holiday weekend with most of the workforce being gone."

If Saturday (and, from what I heard, Sunday) is any indication, it's going to be a fairly quiet week in the office if only because of the holiday. My boss is out of the office on vacation through the beginning of the month, which puts Daisy as the next in line on the chain of command most of the nights she's there working.

The cold has let up, at least a little bit; it was probably in the low 60s on Saturday, and though it's been cold and windy since, it's not so brutal that you're frozen to the bone. Tonight, however, we're supposed to get a rain-to-snow mix that's going to hit the east coast on Thursday, including back home in West Virginia, so I'm waiting to see what's going to happen there. I've been getting to and from work with Daisy's help as well as with the occasional ride there or ride home from a few coworkers when they offer. It's going to remain that way, sadly, until I get a vehicle again that I can drive myself -- whether that be my car or another, newer car. We'd originally planned to start looking for a newer vehicle for me once it started getting warmer in the spring, but it appears that timeframe may be bumped up somewhat depending on what we can do with the Monte Carlo.

Middle Fingers, Part III: Death Knells

I would like to preface this post by saying that for the moment, none of this matters anymore; the car is currently dead. But there's a definite lead up to how it got there.

So.

We got the car towed to Firestone Monday afternoon and had to leave it there overnight. On Tuesday morning they called me and said that it was done -- two new tires and an oil change for $218. There were other miscellaneous little issues with it they told me about as well, but it wasn't anything I didn't already know about, nor anything I haven't known about for years -- wheel bearings are loud, "service engine soon" light on (it's always been on since I bought the car), etc. I picked it up, paid for it, and it fired up perfectly fine. The drive was smooth like butter on those new tires, and the oil change helped out the engine quite a bit, as I could already tell. And I went to work and came home with my stress levels already lowered compared to the usual.

This was fine for two days -- Tuesday and Wednesday. And this was my normal pattern of work (which, for the record, has been awful this week). Yesterday, I went to work as I normally do at my normal time, and because there's never any parking in the main lot, I parked in the overflow lot, in the same spot I park in every day when I have to park down there. The overflow lot is about 100 yards from the front of the building, and I park under the treeline at the end of it. It sucks in the cold sometimes, but otherwise the lot is fine. I walk back down there at the end of my shift and get in, fire it up, drive home.

Last night at the end of my shift -- to my absolute horror, of course, I found that the car had been broken into. In the work parking lot. But it wasn't just broken into, oh no -- it had basically been destroyed on the inside. The entire dash had been smashed in, the rearview mirror ripped off and down, the glove compartment bashed open, stereo (obviously) ripped out and stolen, and (worst of all), the entire ignition assembly had been torn out and was laying in pieces on the floor, the assembly housing completely trashed and even the metal scarred and torn up.

Now, the Monte Carlo is old, but it does have an anti-theft system. That system is a chip embedded in the ignition key of the car. Without it, or if that chip is malfunctioning/doesn't complete the internal circuit, the car won't start. I've had my fair share of complaints about the engineering at GM on that car, but this feature is more than likely why the car is still sitting in the parking lot at work.

However, the would-be thieves had already torn out the tumbler assembly of the ignition switch, severing the wires and everything. Which means there was nothing for the key to connect to. While I could still stick said key into the hole, it would only go in about half an inch, as the chip assembly/key rotator switch was torn out, wires cut, and that's what makes the car start. My car would ding at me as it recognized that the key was in there, but it couldn't turn or turn over the engine (obviously), so there was nothing I could do. It appears that they tried to jam a screwdriver in there (or some other metal tool) in an attempt to get it to turn. Yeah, wasn't happening with my car. At some point they left, and I came back to my car at midnight when my shift was over with it all fucked up.

So. Daisy called the police and found that we could do a report via phone; however, the people who did that weren't in until 7AM. With the car rendered undriveable and no other recourse at midnight after another soul-crushing day at work, we left it there in the parking lot and came home; me for the night, Daisy on her lunch hour. We discussed our options. The first thing I had to do, of course, was file a claim with my insurance company (Geico) in the morning for the attempted theft, and then we'd go from there. Realistically we'd be using our AAA membership again to get it towed home or to a junkyard, as I figured a report of damage would total it out since it's so old and half falling apart cosmetically anyway.

This was not the case, but I'll get to that.

When Daisy got back to work after her lunch hour, she immediately called me.

"Was there a car parked next to yours when we left?" she asked.

"Nope," I said.

"Okay, I didn't think so. I'm calling the police. I hope they're still fucking there."

What transpired after that is nothing short of mindblowing. I shall defer to Daisy here, as her description of it she wrote is pretty spot on as-it-happened:

Brandon's car got broken into yesterday, Thursday-- they fucked it up, pulled the ignition out, etc. He discovered it as he went to go home from work. I took my lunch and drove him home and then went back to work. As I drove by I had a feeling and looked to the left in the overflow parking lot where his car was parked. There was a car parked next to his. We'd called the police earlier and were going to file a report later today. I called 911 again because there was no reason a car should be parked next to his in that lot at this time. While waiting for the police, another car arrived, a grey truck, and parked behind Brandon's, facing the exit and ready to drive away. Forty minutes later the police arrive-- not the officers' fault, they were sent from SW Omaha because of another incident that had taken police attention in the area. The grey truck drove away as the police drove by. The police circled back, not aware the people they were looking for just drove off, and discovered they'd left the car next to Brandon's-- the one I originally called to report-- still running, hot-wired, with no one in it.

I watched a crime from my work window cursing the delay it took for police to arrive. The damage has possibly totaled out Brandon's car. But, on life turns. Things could always be worse and I'm thankful that we're both okay. I'm also thankful for my amazing people I work with who walked me up to police and held my hand to make sure I was okay.

Yeah. That's the brief rundown of it all, anyway. According to my wife, it was ongoing; they came back -- apparently hell-bent-determined to steal my near-worthless Monte Carlo, and continued to try to hotwire it for forty more minutes before the police showed up. How do I know this? Because Daisy and at least three coworkers were watching it as it happened. 

Daisy gave our police report to the officers in person, and got our case number -- which I have and gave to the Geico people this morning -- but told us not to expect to hear back from them (obviously) because there's nothing really the police can do here. I have not yet seen any further damage they caused to the car, of course, because it happened after I was home and asleep for the night. The car remains in the lot.

So.

This morning when Daisy went to bed, I was just waking up and she gave me the rundown of what was going on. My first job, of course, was to report a claim with Geico. I did so, online, and then missed a call from an agent who gave me a number to call him back...a number that went right into Geico's phone tree and took me nowhere. I got another number for the claims department from an operator in some department in Texas, and called back in. This time I got an agent on the line and explained my situation, and she gave me a list of questions about the incident -- which of course I answered truthfully -- before looking up my policy and telling me that theft, attempted theft, and vandalism/damage is not covered by my insurance plan, as I do not have "comprehensive coverage."

For fuck's sake.

My car is almost twenty years old, and to put it under comprehensive coverage (I later found out) would cost me $1000 total per year to insure the car. I only paid $500 for the car to begin with. There is literally nothing the insurance people can do for the car as it is -- this is all on me, out-of-pocket.

"What we'll have to do is file this as an informational claim," she said.

She was, for the record, very sweet and very helpful -- as much as she could be, anyway -- but it still means I'm boned. They can't total out the car; nothing can be done with it now other than to A) have it towed home so that it's no longer in the parking lot at work, and B) have it towed again to a scrapyard to sell it for scrap, or conversely, to an auto shop to see if the entire ignition assembly can be repaired for a somewhat reasonable amount.

Again, I am thankful Daisy signed us up for AAA earlier this week.

More information as it comes in.

Middle Fingers, Part II: Tire'd

The cold has been unrelenting.

Since last week when I last wrote here, it has not been above freezing. Not once. Most of the time, temperatures have struggled to get into the 20s, and there's been a near-constant 15-30mph wind at almost all hours of the day and night. And, to add to the mess somewhat, on Saturday we got our first snowstorm of the season, which produced whiteout conditions for chunks of an hour or two at a time until it finally stopped and moved off to the south and east.

On top of all of this, my car had to go in for surgery.

Let me explain.

Last Thursday when I drove to work, I got out of my car and saw that my tire was low. Hmm, I thought, I should go pump that up tomorrow on my way to work. When I left work that night, it was even lower -- to the point where it was difficult to steer/the tire was producing drag when I was on my way home. Of course, as it was midnight and midnight is fucking dark, I couldn't see how low, only that it was super-low.

By Friday morning when Daisy got home from work, it was completely flat. Rim-sitting-on-the-ground flat. I called Dad, who brought over his portable air compressor (which plugged into the socket of his new truck) and in the absolutely blistering cold, we ran it for over a half hour to see if the tire could be re-pumped. While it took some air and there was a slightly noticeable change in the tire's appearance, it lost it almost as quickly. My tire was flat, it was fucked, the car was unusable.

Mind you, throughout all of this I had no clue what was wrong with the tire (I never found out, actually, but I'll get to that). There was no visible punctures, no nails or anything sticking out of it that I could see -- it was just flat. I asked Daisy, very sweetly, if she would pick me up a can of Fix-a-Flat on her way home from work on Friday night, as I couldn't exactly do it myself (on Friday and Saturday I was picked up and taken to work by one of my coworkers). Daisy picked up said Fix-a-Flat, and the plan was to put it in the tire on Saturday morning while she was sleeping, and if it pumped it up enough to drive on, to then take it down the street about two miles to the local Firestone Auto Center, who I would just pay to replace it before work. We'd gotten paid on Friday, so this wasn't a huge concern for me.

Except...well, remember how I said we got our first snowstorm on Saturday? Yeeeeah. About that...

The forecast for this storm kept changing on Friday night -- both for accumulations and for start times -- and both kept moving up. Originally they gave the estimate of 1-3 inches, which briefly changed to 3-5 before settling on 2-4, and originally the storm was supposed to start at noon or later in the afternoon. They updated that to 9AM with the heaviest snow starting around noon.

On Saturdays, I'm not awake before 9AM and I have to be at work at 3.

By the time I woke up, it was already snowing. Spitting snow, anyway. By the time I woke up enough to function, it was already coming down hard. My coworker had already asked me if I needed a ride to work on Saturday as well, since she would be running errands in the morning before work/before the snow hit, so I told her yes. The plans for working on the tire on Saturday were scrapped, and my poor baby Monte Carlo sat through a snowstorm with one flat tire and one low tire, helpless and powerless against its onslaught. Because of my tire situation, our Saturday manager (a dear friend) gave me permission to work 2-11 and get out of there when I could.

Of course, this didn't help Daisy, who works overnight Saturday nights and is the overnight manager, and Daisy doesn't come in to work until the evening, sooo....yeah, it was not a fun drive in for her. Or for us to come back home when I got off work and she took her lunch. Or for her to go back to work after lunch. Or for her to come back home in the morning.

By midnight or so the snow had completely stopped, but the cold would remain. We gave up on even attempting to look at/work on the tire on Sunday, as the snow was deep and blowing, most of the roads were still at least somewhat nasty, and it was freezing. Instead we made the plans for Monday to get everything done with the car we could, as I had to go back to work on Tuesday afternoon.

Monday came, and with it one of the coldest, windiest mornings I've ever experienced in Nebraska. Daisy and I woke up, bundled up, and went downstairs to put the Fix-a-Flat in the tire to see if that would help. I cleaned all of the snow and ice off the car after she (miraculously, I might add) fired up and I put the heater/defroster on full blast.

There was a method to this madness, of course -- for those of you who have never used Fix-a-Flat, it's pretty simple. It's an aerosol can full of hyper-expanding, sealant foam that has a hose on the nozzle. You connect the hose to your tire valve and pull the trigger, holding it until the entire can has emptied into the tire. If your rim is off the ground, even if tire is still super-low, you're then supposed to drive the car 2-4 miles to get the foam to evenly distribute and expand. In that even distribution and expansion, the sealant plugs any holes of punctures (if they're not huge, of course) and you can take the car to get the tire replaced -- apparently Fix-a-Flat can be driven on for up to 100 miles, according to the can. Stuff is tough.

Well, that didn't happen. It was so cold that the foam froze. In the hose. In the can. While trying to get it into my tire. Daisy and I were near-frozen too, of course. To add insult to injury, when it froze, the hose exploded, which sprayed the rim of my tire with the foam. Twice.

We'd had enough. We went back inside, freezing and frustrated, and looked up towing places. Daisy had already made us an afternoon appointment with the Firestone place down the street, and if the car was getting fixed that day, we had to get it down there somehow.

"They do everything else there," I told Daisy. "Why don't we see if they can tow me down there too? I mean, since that's where we're going anyway."

Daisy called. Despite the fact that we were less than three miles away, the tow down to the shop would cost an extra $80. Eighty dollars for a three-mile tow. We declined, and considered our other options.

"What about AAA?" Daisy asked.

"I don't have it."

"No, but we could sign up today. I know they do free tows with their roadside assistance stuff."

"Could we get a free tow today, on the day we sign up? I don't know if they'll do that, babe," I said.

She looked into it, called AAA to see what they could do, and about twenty minutes later we both had a full AAA membership for a year...for $60. Total. This included free tows anywhere in Omaha within a 10-mile radius. We scheduled the tow truck to come get the Monte Carlo that afternoon. Due to the weather, however, they were backlogged and we had no clue when they'd arrive -- the lady on the phone apparently gave Daisy a five-hour possible window.

Middle Fingers

I don't have enough middle fingers for this weather.

Let me explain.

On Monday morning, I was sitting on the porch enjoying the cool breeze, drinking my coffee and smoking my cigarettes per the usual, and it was a nice and tolerable 60 degrees or so.

By that afternoon, it was barely 40. By dusk, it was about 20. In the overnight hours, it began snowing. Hard. And it didn't stop for hours. By yesterday morning we (officially) had 2.3 inches of snow, and everything was covered by said snow and ice. Everything was a mess. No, quite literally, a mess. People were getting into accidents all over town, cars/vans/buses couldn't get up or down hills safely (compared to living in Kansas, Omaha has many, many hills), and people were getting stranded.

Yeah. In 2.3 inches of snow/ice. Yes, I know.

We weren't supposed to get anything, honestly; the storm was supposed to track north, and the official forecast said there was a 20% chance of flurries, with maybe a trace to a dusting. Yeah, well...

Anyway. It snowed like hell again during the evening hours last night while I was at work, but this time around it didn't stick to the cars, structures, or roads. This is good, because with the sharp dip in temperatures (it was 12 this morning when I awoke) it's already miserable enough. It's 21 outside now, but the temperature -- highs and lows -- isn't supposed to get back above freezing for the foreseeable future. And we're supposed to get more significant snow accumulation on Saturday. How much? Who knows. The weather people haven't released numbers yet, but if they're predicting it this far in advance it's usually a bad sign.

My car does not like the super-cold snap. Don't get me wrong, the Monte Carlo usually loves and/or craves the cold most of the time, but not this time around. She wanted to fight with me a little both when I left for work yesterday and when I came home last night when I started her up, and because it's a short five-minute drive from the house to work and vice versa, she doesn't even really get a chance to warm up unless I sit in the car before I move for five minutes or more. Part of it, I'm sure, is because when I lived in Newton, I could put the car in the garage when it was this cold, or at least pull up really closely to the garage under the balcony so that the house itself would give some shielding and protection from the elements -- here in Omaha, at our apartment, I park in a wide-open parking lot with no protection whatsoever. Same at work, too, unless I have to park across the street under the trees.

Work, by the way, is work. We're getting a new third shift person, and she's in training now; I met her last night. We now also have the help we need on the weekends (for the most part) again, so unless we have some sort of crazy, unbearably busy days, we should be able to manage just fine without performing mock triage on the issues we have to work without being able to give said issues the attention they need since we're so swamped. I've also been told that the winter months are the quietest months at that job, to the point where people can actually breathe and function without a 20-point blood pressure rise due to stress.

Not a whole lot else has been going on as of late; Daisy and I purchased and set up our Christmas tree, and yesterday she even hung up the Christmas Board, keeping that tradition alive. Daisy, again, is waaaaaaay into Christmas. She's doing everything she can to make the holiday season (I hate saying that this early) festive and bright, and I'm just sort of along for the ride at this point. We don't even know what our plans for the holidays are as of yet; I know I'll not be working on my birthday or on Christmas Eve, but that's about it. We have no clue what our Thanksgiving plans are or what we'll be doing on Christmas Day aside from more than likely spending the vast majority of it with the parents/family. There's literally nothing else on the docket as of yet. Looking at the way the holidays fall on the calendar this year, I'll work the 23rd, 26th, and 27th that week, and as it's the week of Christmas I'm guessing it'll be stone cold quiet on those days, which I'm totally fine with. I've heard Black Friday is dead quiet at work as well unless a major retailer goes down/offline. I will be working on Black Friday, of course. It's a Friday. You didn't think I'd ever get a Friday off, did you? Oh, foolish mortal...

Anyway. To the grind again, out into the tundra. Wearing flannel today because I need it. I'm not looking forward to the cold again. Let's just say that I've drained my vapor pen in the past two days because I really, really don't like going outside in this.

Hell Weeks

Where do I begin?

I haven't been sleeping much lately.

Well, no, let me correct that -- I haven't been sleeping well lately. As I've previously mentioned here, almost every time I sleep, even if it's just for a nap (which is rare these days due to lack of actual free time), I dream about work. Doing work, being at work, performing the processes of work. I can't escape it. The problem is not that I don't like my job; I like the job fine, and I take pride in the fact that I can (and do) do said job better than a lot of other people there. No, the problem is that I spend far too much time there doing the same repetitive shit. Being good at my job and not hating it is a curse in itself, for it means I'm given extra responsibility and do efficient work. I just can't leave it there.

I can leave it there physically, even consciously, but I simply cannot leave it there unconsciously, which is why I haven't been sleeping well and dream about that building, my cubicle, and the programs I use at work every. single. night. I don't know if there's anything I can do to stop this, nor do I know if it will ever stop. I don't dream about the people there, just the work. I'm afraid that eventually, it will drive me insane. It's not like they make some sort of drug that can change your dreams, after all. It's not like there's any sort of analyst or therapist (or, heh, an analrapist) one could go to in order to combat this problem -- it's just there.

Part of it, I'm sure, is that the entire month of October at that job was fucking hell. I don't say that lightly -- our average everyday workloads have doubled since/compared to September, and as the company is cracking down on overtime, we don't have as much help as we did before on the weekends. Add to those two things the fact that a lot of my coworkers have had out-of-town or other activities/vacation days/etc that made them unavailable for large chunks of the month, and the stress levels involved with working there have become astronomically high.

Case in point: on Saturday night I had a migraine by the time I left the office...at well after 9PM...when I'd been there since shortly after 11AM. Said migraine had been building all night long, making me nauseated and dizzy for a good portion of the evening, before opening up (almost) full force once I got home. I've had many migraines which were worse, yes, but all migraines suck regardless of intensity. I came home, ate, and went to bed. My days at work since have not been much better; it appears that November is shaping up to be a hellish month much like October was.

Another case in point: our six-month wedding anniversary was on Halloween, and we were so insanely busy at work that we didn't even remember it until earlier this week.

Despite that, today I'm actually in a really good, really productive mood for some reason. I don't know why, really -- I just woke up that way. I've been working around the house all day, cleaning and doing laundry. I took a shower. I cleaned the cat box. I drank almost a full pot of coffee. I've been keeping busy while Daisy is asleep and while I prepare for another two nights in a row of work -- I'll leave here in about forty minutes for my shift tonight.

And, after all, the bills are being paid, there's food in the house, the lights are on, and there's gas in our cars. The job does end once we clock out for the day and come home, and usually the next day we're not going back in to the office to deal with the exact same issues, only similar ones.

Over the course of the past few weeks, and over the course of the next few, there's a lot that's happened and even more that must be parceled out and dealt with. What's coming up is that I have to figure out what's going on with my student loans, as my forbearance is supposed to end this month (yet I've heard nothing whatsoever from my loan servicer yet).

Update: I have checked with the loan servicer and my forbearance doesn't end until December 10. So I have a little more than a month of forbearance left. That's comforting. I more than likely won't qualify for it again as my new job pays much, much more than I made while teaching. I'll have to check on that when the time comes. I'd imagine I'll be getting some more paperwork in the mail for it at some point soon, so it's likely to be at the forefront of my mind for the next few weeks.

Daisy has already started her Christmas shopping; I, meanwhile, have already finished most of mine over the course of the past few months that I've actually had spendable money. I'm done shopping for her parents, and I've gotten two or three things for her as well. I have to get one more big item for her (which I already have planned and ready to purchase, of course), and we'll do shopping together so that we can finish up for the nieces/nephews and the parents, but even in the first week of November we're almost there already. I'll get something for my parents as well, and have it shipped back home to them, but the bulk of what needs to be done is done. I also have a buttload of Christmas cards I've collected/received from various charities and as free gifts with certain Christmas present orders I've put in, so in about a month from now I'll begin sending those out to a lot of friends/family friends I have addresses for.

The gravity of the fact that this will be our first holiday season as a married couple is not lost on us; Daisy is perhaps the biggest fan of Christmas on the entire planet, to the point where she is insanely happy that one of the radio stations here in Omaha (102.3) has already switched to 24/7 Christmas music, and has declared that every time we are in the car together we must blast it and sing along to it together.

I am very glad that my car doesn't have a working radio.

Ahem.

Anyway, the biggest task she wants us to take care of over the course of this next week is to go buy a tree. Artificial, of course -- we can't get a real one because A) they're not out yet, and B) I have used pine-based cat litter a lot in the past, and if the cats smell something pine-y, I'm pretty sure they'd piss all over it. We looked for trees this past weekend, but let me tell you that buying a fake tree is no longer as cheap as it once was. My mother and I got a fake tree about 25 years or so ago from Big Lots for $20. While you can buy a tree for $20 today, it's also about four feet tall and looks like green pipe cleaners. The cheapest one we found that Daisy is marginally interested is $90. And yes, while we are not suffering on money and/or scraping by anymore, it's still really hard for me to justify spending $90 on a fake fucking Christmas tree. And that's the most inexpensive passable tree, at that. The ones at Lowe's start at about $200 and go all the way up to about $950 or so.

Oh yes, I know this; we drove around town to three different stores and called a fourth. On the weekend after Halloween. Looking for fake Christmas trees.

Do I want to put up a tree during the first week of November? Do I even like Christmas? No. I think both are a huge pain in the ass and more trouble than they're worth. But, as I've come to realize after being married for more than six months now, pick your battles.

So. We'll be getting a tree soon.