Jun 10

2006

Payday

There hasn’t been much to do at work the past couple of weeks. It’s summer now and school is out for most of the Sunshine state. There will be plenty to do in the near future, however, because we will need to begin preparing for next year. But in the mean time, I sit in my demi-cubicle and do homework until my boss sends me home. Yesterday, he told us to wrap it up at 4. It’s midly irritating to be sent home early, against my will, as I am not paid to do so. But I can’t complain too much. If I wanted guarenteed hours and overtime, I could work at Walmart again. Just reminding myself of this puts me back in my place.

So looking on the bright side, I think of all the things I can get done with that extra hour and a half. I can start on my errands early and even make a trip to the bank before they close. It was payday. I had some serious grocery shopping to do. We were down to a couple half used boxes of pasta, 1/4 a gallon of milk, 4 eggs, a near empty tub of butter, sour cool whip, and a moldy block of kraft sharp cheddar. There were also a few lingering bottles of sauces and gravies that were useless in-of-themselves and some baking ingredients such as crisco and corn meal. We havn’t even tuched the corn meal since I moved here 8 months ago. I suppose when we dont even have a block on moldy cheddar to spare, we might consider it.

I go to the bank first. Success. One roll of quarters and $9 of paper money to spare. It’s a lot more conveneint than asking Eric to get change from the car wash.

I notice I’m low on gas. Barely hovering over the empty line, I was. So I stop at the Gate 1195 gas station. Now, if I may digress for a moment. . . Just the day before, Eric reminded me that we really need to get a copy of my car key. What a pain it would be if I lock my keys in my car or loose them before we get around to getting a copy. I casually agreed and went about my way. . .So what do you think I did at Gate 1195? I set my purse and my keys on the front seat and proceed to fill my tank. After which, I turn around only to find that I had closed my door. I don’t usually close the door when I’m getting gas. Not only did I close it, however, I had locked it. All four doors we locked, infact. Eric has been lecturing me constantly for leaving one of the passanger doors unlocked all the time. This is probably the first time, ever, that all 4 doors were locked on my car.

I stood in front of my door for about 5 minutes contemplating my options. I could cry. I could have a tantrum and try a mild impersonation of Steve Martin’s characer in Plains Trains and Automobiles. But I do neither. I try for a more grown-up approach. I’ll call a locksmith. But, for Pete’s sake, there goes the rest of this pay period’s budget. I had already accidentally scheduled a credit card payment twice wihich already cut into the grocery fund. But both payments cleared before 2pm that day so we also suffered an overdraft charge. I was already over that, I rearranged the budget before leaving work and it wasn’t so bad. But now this? I mean, come on? What is the deal!

But it had to be done. I looked at my purse and my roll of quarters sitting in the car, then at the plastic I had in my hand. Both my cell phone and a pay phone we out of the question. I walked into the gas station store looking rather pathetic and stood in front of the counter speechless until icould figure out what I was going to ask. I asked there was any chance they had a free phone I could use. The cashier said I could use their phone if it was a local number. He pulled out the phone from behind the counter and handed me a torn up phone book. The phone didn’t work. No dial tone, nothing. So I chuckle to myself and think, now what. Fortunately, a few of the customers overheard my troubles and offered quarters. The cashier also offered me his cell phone. I called one locksmith. There was a one 2 hour wait. I didn’t want to tie up the cashier’s cell phone calling every locksmith in the phonebook, so I called Eric instead.

Eric arrived 15 minutes later and we both remembered that I had left my window down a small bit. Eric tried to use a plastic hanger from his car. It was too flimsy. A couple of intimidating, muscular black dudes offered to help. But they could not find the tools they usually carry with them in their trunks. Some really shady fellow said he could get something from his place near by. Eric wouldn’t even respond to that guy because he was too shady. So Eric and I went home in Eric’s car to reshape a wire hanger. With our newly created tool, we went back to unlock my car.

Aftert this, Eric went to Walmart with me. We went to the automotive department first thing to get a copy of my key. Unfortunately, Kia keys were one of the only few they couldn’t do. Oh well. We’ll deal with that later . . . probably after the next time I need a spare.

At least I had my key now and I didn’t have to pay a locksmith for it. We got all the groceries I had on the list and managed to keep the total under 100.00 as I had planned. After seeing the total at $99, Eric and I decided to add on the $12 bag of cherries that we were holding off on as an extra treat. Now let’s see if we can make it the next two weeks without needing more food :p

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I am: Shelley Limegrover

Where: Laramie, Wyoming

What: A Princess

Married to the most wonderful husband ever.

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