When It Rains It Pours - stories?

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This has been one hell of a trying weekend for me.

First, I am unemployed and almost tapped out. I have barely enough money to make it thru Aug. and then I am screwed, blued and tattooed. This has been weighing on me very heavily all weekend because I have got to pull a rabbit out of a hat tomorrow or I am looking at some really unpleasant alternatives. I have one really hopeful prospect, but if they don't say "welcome aboard" tomorrow - yikes.

So on Thursday I go to get onto the net and my modem does a really bad impression of Phyllis Diller with the croup. Thanks to all who made suggestions - finally had to buy a new modem. Only $25, but in my current financial condition, $25 is a good bit of dough to me.

Friday I come home to find a line of ants snaking into my bedroom and into the closet, all over the carpet, with my one sure companion - my cat - lying right in the middle of them. I freaked. Put the cat out of the room, went and spent money I don't have on some bug spray, and sprayed down the window and the baseboards, and sealed off the door with masking tape. Cat and I slept on the sofa for the next two nights.

Today (Sunday) I come home to find the dining room, where I put my cat's bowl of food and bowl of water, crawling with damned ants! They were all in his food, with the line seeming appearing right at the baseboard behind his bowl. No windows nearby - could not find where they were coming from. They were all over the carpet, and again, my cat, sitting right in the middle of them, just looking at his food. I grabbed him up - put him in the now hopefully ant free bedroom, and ran off to buy (with more money I don't really have) some more bug spray, and plastic dropcloth (so I could walk on the carpet I just soaked with poison).

On my way to the Super K, I was pulled over by a cop. I'm already pissed, and was none too polite to the cop - wtf did I do wrong?! Well, unbeknownst to me, I had a headlight out! We talked and I told him I was on my way to pick up a headlight right then, and he let me go with a warning.

Of course, at the store, this being the last day for the tax-free weekend and back-to-school mania, I had to wait in line for 45 minutes while the very tired and understaffed cashiers tried to manage the throngs.

So here I am at almost one am, surrounded by plastic sheeting and smelling "outdoor fresh" insecticide, with all the necessities moved into my one bedroom, with the cat looking at me like, wtf. I had planned to have a list of job prospects for tomorrow completed, with the resumes, and to be into what I had hoped would be a good, restful night's sleep. Now, in addition to finding a job that will pay me enough in the next three weeks to meet all of September's obligations, I have to tell my landlord that I must move out of this unit and into another asap. (even if they come and clean the place of ants, I won't have my cat trapsing around in poison).

I do believe this is the most frustrating weekend I've had in a long, long while.

Anyone else have a streak of bad luck to share?

[disgruntella]

1. i feel your pain...

My weekend wasn't that bad, but I sympathize with you about the ants. I just visited my sister at her condo and they invaded her cat's dinner too, plus the bathroom (including my toiletries). It's a week later and she's still fending them off. That's enough to ruin a person's weekend right there, let alone unemployment, getting pulled over, etc. etc.

I *did* have a rotten birthday last Tuesday... a little too personal to share. But I'll take the pity if it's offered ;)

[Lars39]

2. Good grief! I hope things start looking up for you ASAP!!!!

On the upside---at least you realize it was bad at the time it was happening; I've been thru a bad run and not realized how bad it was until I came out waaay on the other side. Selective amnesia? :shrug:

[NJCher]

3. just a suggestion but

boric acid crystals are nontoxic and would have solved the ant problem for a fraction of what you spent. Here's a link to a newsgroup post about how they work on roaches (but they work the same on ants, fleas, etc.)

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=boric+acid+crystals&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&selm=32o0nl%246sj%40apakabar.cc.columbia.edu&rnum=2

Sorry about all this. Yes, get your kitty out of that environment and you, too. I just finished reading a Rachel Carson essay about how pesticides get into our bodies. One effect is that the liver disintegrates. This won't happen tomorrow but as we are all exposed to pesticides in all facets of our lives, there's no sense in being around them anymore than you have to.

Also, be sure to tell the landlord to have the place scrubbed down so the next tenant isn't exposed.




Cher

[Nevernose]

4. Worst day of my life -- October, 1995

My cheating, pregnant girlfriend came home from her work 12 hours late -- her boss's wife was out of town. When she came home, there was a monster argument and packing to move ("What the f*** are you talking about? 'I'm Sorry' doesn't even begin to cover this one!"). Moving didn't really matter too much anyway, since we were being evicted that day (only now we were moving to two separate locations, obviously). We spent so long arguing, in fact, that I was late for work...and got fired.

While driving home from the firing, I got pulled over for my broken turn signal. I had used a hand signal, knowing that the turn light was out, and the cop said that using a hand signal was "suspicious behavior." He followed me to the house, in fact, so my now EX-girlfriend could laugh in my face, and the neighbors all whispered that I was a wife-beater. See, I hadn't paid a $50 dollar speeding ticket five years previous, in 1990, so I was going to JAIL for the first time.

When I got out of jail later that same afternoon, I went to my parents house. My wallet was still in the glovebox, so I'd had no money for the bus, and my parent's house was only 5 or 6 miles from the County Jail -- much closer than my soon-to-be-evicted-from house. I let myself in with the key under the flowerpot,took a shower, laid on the couch for a little nap until my mother got home. She spent 10-12 hours a day with my father in the Alzheimer's ward of the nursing home, so she really hadn't been around in years.

A couple of hours later, she called the house looking for me (my now ex-girlfriend had at least been courteous enough to tell her that I was in jail and probablhy headed home for a few weeks). "Come quick, I think he's dying, dying right now, this will be your last chance to see him."

On the highway, halfway on my twenty-mile trek to my dying father's nursing home, my car's engine threw a rod. I wasn't there when he died; only for the endless crying afterwards.

There's a line in the movie The Freshman: "There's a certain sense of relief when you know you're completely screwed. 'Cause no matter how bad things are, you know they can't possibly get any worse."

THIS IS ACTUALLY A VERY HAPPY STORY...because every day since then has been markedly better. Can't possibly get any worse :-)

[Booberdawg]

5. OMG

That wasn't a bad day - that was having a bad life! LOL!

Glad you see the bright side now.:)