Cancer is such an ugly word

Mr. Nascar went to the local health department about a month after he was released. He doesn’t have any insurance and was dropped from TennCare when he was released from prison. While incarcerated, he had noticed a mole on his right shoulder blade had changed. It was an ugly little thing, so black that glistened. The health department referred him to a dermatologist to have the mole removed. He went for his office visit, they cut it out, stitched him up and he went along his merry way. He had a follow up appointment scheduled for 2 weeks later.

We both had mostly forgotten about the issue, the old “No news is good news” approach was in the back of our minds. Unfortunately that turned out not to be the case. When he arrived at his follow up appointment the doctor gave us the news that the pathology on the mole had returned, testing positive for cancer; malignant melanoma. Ugly, ugly words. I didn’t know what to do, so I did what I do best in upsetting, stressful situations. I cried. Mr. Nascar, bless his heart takes things in stride and has a very calm attitude about it. The dermatologist referred him to an Oncologist and a Surgeon. I guess they made the appointments backward, because the Oncologist was the first appointment and he couldn’t really help us seeing as he didn’t have the results from the surgery. Mr. Nascar met with the surgeon and an appointment was set for a larger area of skin to be removed around the original mole site, and for him to be injected with radioactive dye, to see if the cancer had spread.

On May 21, we arrived at the hospital at 7am. I dropped Mr. Nascar off and then whisked Bert© off to school. I was back by 8am and went to the Day Surgery area to sit with him before his surgery. I’ll never forget, he was in bed 11 and they said I could go right back. He looked so uncomfortable at 6′ 3″ trying to fit into the little hospital bed. He nodded off, but reminded me that at 8:30 I needed to go down and talk with financial services at the hospital. Without insurance, we have to pay for all of this out of pocket. The hospital has given us a 41% cash discount, but we still needed to put down a deposit before the surgery and then make payments on the $9,000-10,000 hospital bill. Ugh, even talking about it turns my stomach. I don’t know that we’ll ever be able to get out from under that, but it’s just going to have to be one step at a time.

When I finished with financial services, I went back up to sit with Mr. Nascar as his surgery wasn’t scheduled until 11. I went back to bed 11, and pulled back the curtain. To my surprise, Mr. Nascar was not there! I startled the heck out of the old man that had been assigned to that bed next. I closed the curtain, red-faced, turned on my heel and headed back to the reception area. The very nice nurse at the front desk explained that she had hoped to catch me when I came back to tell me that they had taken him on to pre-op to prep for surgery. I just smiled and told her it was too late. I suggested that she might want to check on the man in bed 11, as I’m sure I came as a little bit of a shock to him.

In the waiting lounge, I spent hours alternating between reading my book and checking the names scrolling down the TV screen that gives an update on each patient’s surgery status. I received a call from a surgical nurse when they surgery started, and again about an hour in to update me and let me know that all was well. Finally about 1:30 that afternoon the lounge nurse notified me that the surgery was over and that the doctor would be coming to talk to me.

I had never met Dr. D before, but he was very nice. He explained to me that the surgery went well. The radioactive dye had travelled to the lymph nodes under Mr. Nascar’s right arm, so he took 3-4 of those out for biopsy. He gave me some basic care instructions, and advised me that we should set a follow up appointment for two weeks. About an hour after I spoke with Dr. D I was able to go back and sit with Mr. Nascar again. He was asleep when I arrived, heavily medicated. I sat with him for awhile and quietly read my book. Around 3pm Mr. Nascar woke up and was complaining of intense pain in the incision site on his back. The nurse said she was unable to give him any more medication; we would need to wait for discharge and have his prescription filled.

We left the hospital about 4 that afternoon and went to pick up Bert©. We made our way to Wal-Mart to have his prescriptions filled. He wasn’t feeling very well and was very groggy. He went straight to sleep as soon as we arrived home. That weekend I was off on Friday & Monday for the Memorial day holiday. Friday was Bert©’s last day of school. I promised her that I would come and have lunch with her that day, and Mr. Nascar has said he would come as well. That didn’t end up happening. From Thursday afternoon after the surgery till Saturday, Mr. Nascar slept 20-21 hours a day. On Saturday we first realized he was having a fever, 102.4. Thus began the first of 3 visits to the Emergency Room to fight what we would eventually find out to be a raging Staph infection.

Life was pretty miserable for all involved for the next two weeks or so. My step-father passed away very suddenly, from what we still really don’t know. Mr. Nascar was in copious amounts of pain from the 6” incision on his back (because the skin was pulled so tight to close the wound) and from the surgery site under his arm as it was swollen from the infection.

Then, more bad news came along. The pathology on the lymph nodes had come back. They had tested positive for cancer. Dr. D thought it would be best for him to go operate again on Mr. Nascar to remove the rest of the lymph nodes under his right arm. First though, we needed to clear up his current infection and give him some additional time to heal. We used that time to take off for a family vacation in Florida. We needed that, all of us. It was time to relax, and enjoy each others company without the pressure and stress of everyday life.

On Tuesday July 14, Dr. D again operated on Mr. Nascar. The difference between this surgery and the previous one is very noticeable. Mr. Nascar was awake as soon as I came back to the recovery room. He has had a full and voracious appetite. He hasn’t been sleeping most of his days away. He has been up and around, and joking with me. So far (fingers crossed, please) there has been no sign of an infection. Mr. Nascar started taking antibiotics a week prior to surgery and will continue them for 20 days afterward to hopefully thwart another infection. He says that his arm is sore, and he cannot raise it very high, and the drain that he has for the next two weeks is annoying, and things don’t taste right because of the antibiotics, and, and, and. He is back to his *relatively* normal self again. I am happy to see it. He’s itching to go back to work, but I’d like him to be out for at least a week, especially with the drain in.

He has a follow up appointment in two weeks with Dr. D. Hopefully we will have the pathology back on the remaining lymph nodes that were removed. Dr. D said that he didn’t see anything obvious that looked bad, however it’s harder to tell in men than it is in women. I don’t see that it matters much regardless because Mr. Nascar has decided not to follow up with the Oncologist. He is adamant that he doesn’t want any Chemotherapy or Radiation treatment. He tells me that he’s 42 years old and that his only regret if he dies would be leaving me and Bert© behind. He says he is not scared of dying, that he is looking forward to what happens when he passes from this life.

I am not happy about this decision, but it is not my place to force him to choose otherwise. He is a grown man and is perfectly capable of making choices in his life, he got along fine for 40 some odd years without me and he doesn’t need my opinions now. He spent 11 years caring for his mother and watching her die. He knows some of what it’s like to go through those treatments, and understands the disappointment when they don’t work. His theory is, why not enjoy the time that I do have left with the people I love, instead of making myself feel sick and miserable with the medication that’s supposed to help me and dying anyway. I really can’t fault him on his logic. Regardless, it’s plausible that I could be killed in a tragic accident and die before he does anyway. Who knows? From the moment we’re born we begin dying. Might as well make the most of it.

That being said, I’m going to go wake his butt up right now, give him and big hug and tell him how much I love him. Thank you all for letting me share this with you. It was finally time and it needed to come off my chest.

Happy Saturday everyone!

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Bill Nye the Science Guy

I’m so darn tired lately. All I seem to do is sleep. I have been waking around 5:30 in the morning, for no apparent reason other than my brain decided it needed to start thinking about things. So as I’m snuggled in my bed, cozy warm and blissfully happy, little thoughts and worries begin creeping into my head. Soon I’ve got myself so wound up, I am unable to fall back asleep before the alarm rings, signalling that it is indeed time to get up. This seems to happen every once in a while, particularly when things in my life aren’t going exactly according to plan. I’m worried about money, paying bills, making the car insurance payment. I worry that things with Doug aren’t going so well, I second guess things that I’ve said to him, and so on. I just seem to be one big ball of nerves lately. I find that I don’t have much of an attention span, and I’m having great difficulty focusing at work. The good news is that in all my previous experiences with this mental insomnia, it eventually passes and life returns to normal.Things have been very crazy at my house. I ended up in the emergency room a week ago with what the doctors suspect to be food poisoning. I spent about 3 hours vomiting profusely, as well as having some other bodily rejections. I couldn’t even go five minutes without being sick. Finally at about 3am I woke B* and drove myself to the hospital. I will say that I received excellent care, I was most impressed. They started an IV right away and gave me something to stop the nausea/vomiting even before the doctor bestowed his presence upon me. Talk about Dr. McDreamy though, oh this one was a cutie. He was very kind to B* as well, letting her listen to my heart and feel my pulse. He very patiently answered her questions and offered to show her an X-ray when she was inquiring about one. He was terrific. I was discharged at about 5am, and returned home, prescription for Phenergan in tow. I spent the whole day sleeping, and still felt pretty bad the next day. I think around Wednesday/Thursday of that week I began to feel human again.Doug called on Friday of last week. We chatted for a bit and he asked if he could come over. He promised that he’d bring a couple movies and we’d just lay low. I agreed, and he dropped by about 10pm. The movies were crap. BAD. He rented Reign Over Me, with Don Cheadle & Adam Sandler. I don’t like AS in a serious role. He’s a better actor when he’s acting like his normal goofball self. Then we watched Saving Sara Cain. It was based on a novel by Beverly Lewis, about a contemporary woman living in Portland who ends up with custody of her sister’s 5 Amish children. It was better than the AS movie, but not by much. He decided that I’d be sure to pick out the next set of movies. We sat on my couch for a very long time holding hands and talking. We asked each other questions, and gave bits of life history. It was pleasant. At about 3:30am I finally asked him to go home, I couldn’t stay awake any longer. He gave me a big hug and a little kiss and then was on his way.

On Saturday I had a housewarming party to go to for one of the ladies I work with. I love her house, it’s awesome and very beautiful. There were several people there I knew through work, and I had opportunities to meet new people. I had a very good time, and really need to get out more and do things like that. I enjoy small, intimate group settings as opposed to large crowds.

On Sunday it was the SuperBowl, so I went off to Becky’s house to enjoy it. I called and invited Doug, per Becky’s instructions. He said he’d love to go, he’d call me when he’d wrapped up some work he was doing. At about 4:30pm he called to back out of coming. I was mad. Becky and I had run around like crazy making sure everything was tidied up, went out and bought snacks, the whole nine yards. Becky hadn’t been feeling well to begin with, and had over extended herself in her zeal to get everything ready for Doug to arrive. Needless to say, I was unhappy about that and then I was very disappointed with the football game itself. That’s saying something as I don’t particularly like football,  just tolerate it when I’m at Becky’s.

On Tuesday I was reading the paper at work and saw that Gordon Lightfoot is coming to Knoxville on February 11th. I was initially turned on to his music by Jeff, who told me about the song Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, when I took my trip to Michigan. I did a little research and found some of his other songs, and discovered that he’s a fellow Canadian. That automatically makes him A-OK in my books, so I decided I’d ask Doug to go to the concert with me. I sent him a text asking how he was and if he wanted to go. He replied: Is concert this monday? I replied back yes, Monday Feb 10th at 8pm. Unfortunately I got the date wrong, it’s actually the 11th. I never received a response to that. So I waited to see if I’d hear something on Wednesday, but nada. This now on top of him backing out on me on Sunday has put me in a most irritable mood. So, this morning I just decided that I’ll go by myself, so I purchased my ticket. Becky’s going to pick B* up from school for me on Monday and I’m going to make an evening of it, I think. Nice dinner, nice show, nice grown up time!

On Wednesday I had to leave work early for a conference with B*’s teacher. I was able to leave work at 2pm and pick up B*. My appointment wasn’t until 4pm so I took her to the Science Museum. It cost me only $5 for admission and we had a fantastic time. We spent over an hour there and still didn’t see everything. I can’t wait to take her back. I rushed home to meet the teacher (it was a home visit) and spent about 30 minutes going over B*’s development and how she is adjusting to school. I’m pleased to report that she’s intelligent, compassionate, and very polite. Everyone likes B*, and she loves everyone. She can count to 30 without help, knows her ABC’s on sight, all her shapes, colours, body parts. She’s beginning to comprehend rhyming words and adjectives like closest, farthest, behind, beside, etc. They have a little test that they score the children on, and B* received 183/200. As a reward for her efforts at school, we went to a matinee movie yesterday. We saw “Alvin and the Chipmunks”. I highly recommend it. B* loved it, she thought it was funny, and was dancing in the aisles when the chipmunks would break into song. It was a lovely afternoon and I enjoyed spending it with my daughter. Hopefully I am able to do more things like that with her, so she always has good memories of time that we spent together.

Tomorrow is Friday. I’ve dubbed it “D” day. Not only do I get paid tomorrow, *fingers crossed* I should be getting my IRS tax return deposited to my account. I have already delegated plenty of places for that money to go. It will pay off the new tires I got on my car last year, it will pay off my Lane Bryant credit card, it will get my automobile insurance for the next 6 months, and I will have a tidy sum put aside in the bank for a rainy day.

Oh! I’ve forgotten to share the best news of all. On March 6, 7, & 8th I will be in Phoenix AZ. I’m being sent on another business trip!! I’ll be staying at the lovely Arizona Grand Resort, to attend the BKBG kitchen & bath trade show. This has absolutely nothing to do with the business segment I normally work with, I’m basically being rewarded for being a good employee. It will require some work, I will be processing any orders that we get at the show, but other than that I’m told it will be a drinking free for all with some hob-nobbing on the side. I can’t wait!!

 That’s all for now, I really need to get to bed. I hope everyone is well. I’ve been trying to keep up on other blogs, but it is so hard not having regular internet access. I miss everyone.

I think my next entry will be about my mom’s interesting voyage back to the motherland…aka Canada.

The beginning of the end?

I’m a little sad tonight. This might be one of my last few blog entries. I received my internet bill the other day and almost fainted. It appears that my promotional period is over and the full price billing has kicked in. I just cannot afford it any longer. Things are so tight for me financially, I need to cut back and make sure that the necessities are covered. The cable and internet are being turned off, I have reduced the cost of my cell phone plan. I found out that my wireless provider gives me a 17% discount because of the company I work for. That is a pretty decent discount. I’ll have to see next month how much that actually reduces my bill. Also, I have not turned the heat on at all this winter. That has enabled my electric bill has been between $31-35 a month. I live paycheck to paycheck, and it should end up being even smaller come the beginning of January as the premiums for my medical benefits are going up. I’m really trying to cut back where I can, but I tell you, it makes me depressed to know that I work 40 hours a week just to survive. It’s scary to think that my whole life might be like this!

On 11/27 the state of TN had sent a garnishment notice to Mike’s employer. I think I mentioned previously that Mike has only been able to secure temporary employment through Express Personnel in Rochester, MN. I called on 12/21 as I still had not received any support and found out that EP had ignored the request. The state sent another letter out on 12/19, and if they ignore that, there will be legal action taken against them for interference with the collection of child support. I called Mike tonight to check on the status of his job as he mentioned it was only going to be seasonal work. He said they let him know today that his employment had been extended. For how long? He has no clue, or so he says. I asked him if he talked to anyone at EP about them ignoring the wage assignment, he said that they need to be sent to the corporate office in OK. Gave me a phone # for them, so I’ll call about that tomorrow. I don’t know why the local office didn’t just shoot off the letter to corporate and let them take care of it. Goodness, I feel like I’m living on the verge of the movie Deliverance. Bunch of back water hicks I seem to be dealing with here.

I was extremely surprised that Mike sent Hailey a Christmas present. He sent her nothing for her birthday and when I questioned it, he said “Gifts just really aren’t my thing.” Yes ladies and gentlemen, that is the lovely winner that I married. What was I thinking??

 Work is ridiculously slow right now. I think I took the first phone call in our department today, at 10:00 maybe 10:15. The majority of us spent the day cruising the internet and chatting to each other. I’m leaving at 2pm tomorrow for the beginning of another 4 day weekend, WOOT! I will be heading to Gatlinburg to meet my mother and Hailey who have been there all week shopping and sight seeing. I think the plan is to meet up with some close friends of my mothers and explore Dollywood. Yes, I have been there many times before, we bought season passes with my tax return last year, but I still haven’t visited all the little nooks & crannies. Hailey gets so excited when we go, that’s what will make it worthwhile for me.

I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas. I know I sure did. I guess I’ll need to find time to blog about that too.

I felt a little tingle.

I woke up Monday morning grumpy and still groggy. As I sat up in bed, I rubbed my hand over my face. I felt a familiar little tingle in my lips. I jumped out of bed and raced to the mirror in the bathroom. It only confirmed what I had already suspected, cold sores!! Grrr!I have been afflicted with cold sores for as long as I can remember. My mother has them, but my brother, Steve does not. I have pictures of myself throughout my school years with a big old ugly cold sore on my lip. I hated them when I was younger, it was something else for the other kids to make fun of me for. Life was rough when I was a young’n.

I’m still in the early stages of an outbreak. The sores still look like little blisters, they’ve not broken open yet. Thankfully as the days go on, they are less painful. Unfortunately, Hailey happened to brush against my mouth with her hand yesterday, and I was nearly in tears. This outbreak has been worse than any other I ever remember. Normally I break out with one sore, maybe two. Currently, I probably have 7 or 8 sores clustered on my top lip, and 3 smaller ones on my bottom lip. I feel like a leper. Everyone at work commented on them. One of the girls actually asked me if I had had collagen injections. My lips are so swollen, they remind me of Angelina Jolie’s lips.

My boss wandered by yesterday, and stopped for a double take. “What’s up with that?” he asked as he pointed towards his own lips. “It looks painful” I smiled ruefully. “Painful really doesn’t even begin to describe it.” “You know, they say those are brought on by stress.” He stated. “Well I guess we can tell how stressed out I’ve been lately!” Honestly, it’s true. I have been incredibly stressed lately. It’s not been work so much as it’s been Mike, Jeff, and the holidays. Possibly even in that order!

Let’s start with Mike. When we last left Mike, he was moving to BFE Minnesota to be with his wonderful new girlfriend. He had finally, with much pestering, provided me his new address. I needed to send him a dental bill for Hailey, and I wanted to make sure that I updated the state on where he is living. Per our divorce agreement, I am to provide Hailey with health insurance. Even though Mike had better insurance than I did, this decision was made because when he first left TN and arrived in CA, Mike quit his job and didn’t tell me. Hailey and I went 30 days unknowingly without health care. I figured that this would ultimately be a pattern with him, and sadly, I was right. Mike has had 5 different jobs in the 2 years since he walked out on me. Know how many I have had? One. I don’t think I’ve even had 5 jobs in my entire work history.

Anyway, Mike gave me his address and I shipped off the dental bill. Last Friday, I received a final notice in the mail from the dentists office. I was furious, and called to let him know. He had nothing much to say, didn’t seem to care, wouldn’t contact the dentist to let them know that he couldn’t pay. Lord, even just recounting it now makes me upset. If he was here in front of me, I’d kick him in the damn balls and hope I did enough damage so he’s permanently unable to have more children! I wonder if perhaps I need some therapy about this?? It’s not that I’m upset that he left me, hell I’ve had a pretty good time with just Hailey and me. I’ve met some wonderful friends, tolerate love my job, and have even had a few romantic relationships. I just get so furious about Mike’s complete lack of regard for our daughter.

I was good, though. I didn’t yell at him, but I was so frustrated by the end that I was almost in tears. Apparently Mike has been living in MN for a month now, and still doesn’t have a job. I was stunned by that news! In the whole time that we were married, Mike always had a job within 2-3 days of the last one. He’s a truck driver, for goodness sake. There are openings everywhere for that type of job. I guess it’s that he wants a local position, so he can be closer to the honeypot at the end of the day. I asked him to please take care of the bill, and then let him talk to Hailey.

I wasn’t sure what to do. It’s been almost 2 months since my last child support check. August 24th I believe, was the last deposit. I have Christmas coming up, my car insurance is due, and honestly I am spread too thin financially. It has been in the back of my mind that I really could use a second job, but what would I do with Hailey? My mother doesn’t live close enough to watch her, and if I had to pay evening daycare costs it would almost defeat the purpose of my working another job.

Mike’s mother called later that weekend to give me belated birthday wishes. I’ve known the woman almost 8 years now, and she has never remembered my birthday on time. It bothers me, as I feel that it’s disrespectful to me. I’m a good ex-daughter-in-law though, and I just smile and tell her thank you. She asked me what I would like for my birthday.

“Well, to be honest…I have this dental bill here of Hailey’s. It’s $40 and it’s supposed to be Mike’s responsibility, but he can’t or wont pay it. Every spare bit of money I have right now is going toward my car insurance, due in December. Do you think you could send me the money for the bill?”

I hated to ask her. It really made me feel very small that I could not provide for my daughter and needed to ask for help. I will give Kay some credit though, as she said “Sure honey, I’ll get that out to you right away.” We chatted a little bit more, and Kay told me she was surprised at Mike’s lack of job as well. Kay is quite religious, and isn’t afraid to show it. She said that perhaps the next time she talked with Mike, if he still didn’t have a job, she would casually mention that perhaps his place wasn’t in MN.

I have found a forum online that Mike is registered to. I occasionally go there to get updates on him, as I wouldn’t put it past him to withhold information from him. These are a few of the things he’s posted lately.
11/16 AM: “Oh har har, no I did not rob the gas station(I did liberate the money held hostage in the till though!). I have not heard a thing from WM, had an interview at macy’s for loss prevention on monday, when I checked they are still interviewing. Had an interview today through express personnel at benchmark, doesn’t pay much (which I mean after TN gets the child support I’ll get maybe 50 bucks a week) but I should find out either later today or monday. ARGH!!!”
11/16 PM: “Just an update, I got a job! Only until the first of the year, but hey it’s something!”
11/16 late PM: “I learned I got a friggen job! And that now my ex wants all the money”
11/20 AM: “I’m as happy as I’m gonna get cause I got a job.”

I talked to him last night and he’s not mentioned his new job. I have no idea what it is, but was surprised by the post that he had applied at Walmart. I hate that he mentions me as if I am some greedy, good for nothing, gold digger. I keep trying to remind him, he SAW the divorce papers before he signed them and the support was clearly spelled out. He COULD have retained a lawyer to help him but he chose not to. He in the end SIGNED the paperwork, agreeing to the terms of the divorce and support. I refuse to feel sorry for him. The man is 28 years old, and is right where he is based on the choices he made. I didn’t make him get a credit card or two, or three and run up $20,000 of credit card debt. I didn’t make him quit his good paying job, so he cannot afford the child support. He needs to take responsibility for his daughter and do right by her. I need to stop wasting my breath reminding him of these things. It’s going in one ear and out the other.  

I hate the thought of how he probably portrays me in conversations with other people. I wonder if his ‘biker-chick’ feeds into his delusions about me. I can’t imagine her saying: “Mike, you’re wrong. You have a responsibility to pay child support. This isn’t money your ex-wife asked for, this is what she is needs to be able to care for your child full time.”
I imagine that it goes more along the lines of this: “Of course she’s a b*tch, Mike. She’s just out to get every last dime that you make. You’re right, she doesn’t need that much child support. Geesh, it’s only one kid…really, how much could a 4 year old eat?”

So I’m incredibly a little bit stressed, and a lot angry. I have just over a week left to get things together until Jeff gets here. Today is Thanksgiving and I have been adopted by my friend Beth from work. Christmas is just around the corner, and really I just feel like giving a great big “BAH HUMBUG!” to everyone I meet. I’m going back to bed now. I’ll pull the covers over my head and try and sleep through the holidays.

 See you in 2008 everyone!!

Just kidding.

$500…easy come, easy go.

Today was a financially painful day. Normally, I live paycheck to paycheck like any other red-blooded American. I can pay the day to day bills but we don’t have a lot of extras. Well, unfortunately I have desperately needed tires on my car for probably 3 or 4 months. You could hardly see any tread left on my tires and an ever widening strip of thread was showing. If there was any standing water on the road when I was driving, I could feel the car begin to hydroplane and would fishtail around corners. I was becoming frightened to drive in the rain and knew that it was only a matter of time before I had a blow out.

The girls and I were talking at work today and someone mentioned that Pep Boys around the corner from our office was having a “Buy 3 get 1 free” sale on tires. I decided to wander down on my lunch break to get the inside scoop. I was waited on promptly by a cute guy who had to have been just slightly younger than I am. He enlightened me that “Buy 3 get 1 free” really kind of is a misnomer because you have to pay upfront for 4 new tires (plus road hazard insurance, balancing, and new stems) and then send in your *gasp* mail in rebate.

I loathe mail in rebates, because of the hassle of filling them out, mailing them in and then waiting 6-8 weeks for my money back. I hate the feeling of dread in the bottom of my stomach when I haven’t heard anything and I worry that my rebate form has been lost in the mail or deemed illegible and tossed in the “Ha ha they wont get their refund” pile. But because I am “Cheap as a Monkey” I always fill out and send in any mail in rebate, no matter how little it will net me in return.

I asked Chad behind the counter to quote me a total for the package deal of 4 new tires. I had managed to save up about $250 and figured that would get me somewhere. WRONG! I was about $100 short of the mark. I figured that I would just need to keep saving up and in a few more weeks I could get my tires. That was until Chad mentioned that today was the last day to qualify for the rebate. I wasn’t quite sure what to do when Chad invited me to sign up for a Pep Boys line of credit. I was apprehensive about this as you all remember a few weeks ago I pulled my credit report and while the results weren’t horrible, I was pretty sure I would be declined.

Chad had never done an instant credit application so he called in the manager. We walked to one of the open computer terminals and got down to the nitty gritty.
Name
DOB
Address
SSN
Blood Type
Kindergarten teacher’s name
Contents of your refrigerator

It went on and on! He clicked continue to submit the information he had just collected and suddenly the screen went black and the cursor turned to a little red X on the screen. I kid you not. The manager was just as shocked as I was. He banged on the keyboard a little, wiggled the mouse in vain, he even turned the monitor off and then back on. Nothing would bring back my information. Finally they had to do a hard boot up of the terminal while I anxiously checked my watch. The poor little computer just would not boot back up so we went over to the next terminal and entered my information from scratch.

I think I’d actually begun sweating by this time. I had 30 minutes left on my lunch break and I was certain that I would now be declined because their company had already tried to pull my credit history. Mr. Manager worked his magic though and we got all the way through the process and Voila! I was approved for a $500 line of credit.

It’s been awhile since something has made me so ridiculously happy. I swaggered walked back to the tire department and got my little self set up with 4 new tires, balancing, road hazard warranty, new stems, and a 4 wheel alignment. I told them I would be back by 5:30 to pick up my car and set off to walk back to work. I swear I must have had the biggest smile on my face. It didn’t bother me one bit that it was oh 93 degrees (give or take) and it was probably a mile back to work. I had gotten myself some tires, I was technically only paying for 3, and finally my car would be 100% safe to drive.

When I got back to my desk I only had about 5 minutes left of my lunch break so I just logged back in early. I sent out a message to everyone within my department to see if anyone could give me a ride back to my car. M* said she needed to go down there anyway to get wiper blades and that she’d give me a lift.

After work we chatted on the 2 minute drive down to Pep Boys and I swear I almost squealed when I saw my car. I was no longer apprehensive about getting behind the wheel to drive. And oh what a drive it was. No more road vibrations, no more slipping and sliding. I was in love with my car once again.

So there is the saga of how I gained and then lost almost $500 in one day. I hate that I had to put it on credit, but I figure I can throw the $250 I saved up down as the first payment. I think in the end it was worth it if not for my safety, then for Hailey’s as well.