I lost my job in December 08 and can not find anything that pays close to my old job. This presents a problem in the following ways. I live in a city of about 1,000 homesteaded residents. That means that I own a home that is considered my primary residence and therefore pay property taxes that are exactly half that of a non-homesteaded property owner. My property taxes are roughly $335 per month. When I was 18 I rented a house for $400 per month! I’m not complaining, quite the opposite, I have never been so proud as the day that we bought this house. Fat Tuesday of 2003 we closed on this house and partied like we had just won the lottery. The bar where I worked had it’s first huge Fat Tuesday party and for those of you who have never been to Saugatuck and Douglas on that day I am at a loss for words. I’ve never been to New Orleans, but the parade through Douglas and the parties afterward are unbelievable considering the size of our small cities. We have at least 20 businesses with liquor licenses within walking distance.
We were a young couple that realized the “American Dream.” The excitement soon grew into a desire to fix everything up. The sea-foam green carpet, the pastel blue and green paint,vinyl flooring, old appliances, etc. We had been living with my parents around the corner and weren’t aware of how much crap we had accumulated. We filled our little 1,200 square foot house within a few days. We are collectors of a vast number of things. Simpsons action figur)es, comic books, reference books, audio equipment, guitars, amps, a couple of Hammond organs, bikes, mini-bikes, tools, vacuum cleaners (I’ll explain later) and now stuff for the yard. Soon it would become very difficult to remode l with all of our things in the way so we just got used to living like when we were in college again. The house was a vacation rental so when we moved in it was furnished with the type of furniture that you would relegate to your second home. I scored a bitchin’ Herman Miller desk and already owned an Aeron chair so I was happy. Pants (my fiancees nickname) decided that she liked the brown pleather arm-chair and the black pleather couch so we called it a day. With our new house and the new bar thriving we were busy. I just threw wads of cash into my stash spot at the end of the day, passed out and went to work the next day.
Soon after the closing the credit card offers started showing up. The first one that I bit on was a Chase Platinum card with a $20k limit, no interest for a year and a half at 8%. I laughed when it showed up and put it in my wallet all the while wondering what I would need it for. I had so much cash that if I saw something that I wanted I just made someone’s day and forked it out, like it was lint from my belly button. Six years would pass and while I had an amazing job, I was fast becoming a horrifying alcoholic. I could sleep until 2:00, get dressed, go to the bar where Pants works, have a few shots and a couple of Stoli and tonics then go open the bar. At 4:00 I opened the bar and sometimes would have a shot and a rocks glass of beer with my boss if he was there. By about 5:00 I would drink “roxies” for a few hours and by 8:00 I would start drinking more shots along with them. By midnight the gloves were off and I’d be home or more likely at the after-party by no later than 3:00. This happened daily, alcoholics seldom take the day off. We went on vacations and traveled all over the place visiting friends and going to more concerts than ever before. We had bands in the bar every weekend sometimes four a week. I had stacks of t-shirts, CD’s and offers to crash at peoples houses all over the map. We started having the bands sign random things for us because we knew that many of them would be onstage at the biggest music festivals in the country. We were right. The summers were out of control with all the tourists, the bands, customers who we let into our circle and friends that lived in Saugatuck during the season. Many of those nights I will never write about in the best interest of all parties involved. It is a paradise unlike any other. It still is, but right now you could fire a cannon down Butler Street. I’ll tell some of those stories in the future, but for now finding a job is the flood subject.
Tomorrow I have to take a placement test for a program called No Worker Left Behind. It’s a program started by our Governor to provide training to get a job or to pay up to $5,000 per year to go back to school. I’m not going to be able to go to U of M like I always wanted, but I can go to GVSU and study graphic design! I am very excited about this, but still have to find a job with flexible hours that pays at least half of what I used to make. Then take the taxes out of that. I just watched Mc Libel. Interesting that I picked that before I hunt for jobs tomorrow after my test. I applied for a job as a bartender last night and am waiting to hear back from a pizza joint where I applied as a cook. I’m hoping for the bar gig, but will happily accept the kitchen job that might pay $10/hr. 10×40=400x.75=$300. That’s a very good night as a bartender, not including $5-$8/hr. in wages. I’m within a week of being able to pass a drug screen so I can talk to a temp agency. If I’m lucky I’ll find a desk job that pays $15/hr. That’s $450/week after taxes. I know, maybe I’ll get some benefits if I’m lucky. Of course I don’t have any now. I am not eligible for unemployment because I didn’t make enough on paper and just got denied food stamps because Pants makes too much. I couldn’t take advantage of the $ for clunkers because I couldn’t get a loan and believe me I have a clunker to trade in. I can’t get a home equity loan or refinance because the $100,000 of equity in my house vanished with the real estate crash. Both our cars are falling apart and my phone rings constantly with creditors with their hands out. The remaining credit cards that we have open are all charging us 30% interest, actually it’s only 29.99%. The rest of them are all on payment plans. I had a hack my iphone to put it on T-Mobiles network while I pay the collections agency that AT&T sent me to off. At least I have an unlimited plan for $60/mth. Big shout out to these two guys for that. T-mobile has shitty coverage where I live, but if I go outside it works OK. Their customer service is outstanding so far, but I don’t have a contract and they have competition. AT&T can go fuck themselves. My iphone package with data, 500 texts and 450 minutes was $80/mth plus change. They started sticking me for going over on my texts so I upgraded. Then I had to start negotiating with all the nice companies we do business with so I went over my minutes. The next month I got a $500 phone bill (mind you my contract was up by six months.) I reminded the CSR this and asked why they didn’t contact me to offer an upgrade or ask me when I upgraded my texts. “That’s not our job” she replied. They were charging me .45/minute after my 450. If that wasn’t bad enough when they sent me to collections the lady that called me was like nothing I had ever experienced. Buy groceries or send her money was not a tough decision needless to say. I’m not writing to bitch about how unfair life is or anything like that.
I think that it would be interesting to see what would happen if I tried to live my life by only working with small businesses, or at the very least, large businesses who answer the phone and treat me with respect. Even large businesses that support local economies such as buying fruit and vegetables from local farmers. We have a large Michigan based grocery chain that does that. That covers my groceries when we can’t buy at the farmers markets. We seldom eat out so that makes that pretty easy. There are a few restaurants in the area that try to make their purchases accordingly. Sysco, the biggest restaurant purveyor is pretty good about it too based on what I’ve read. Gas, electricity and internet will be the tough ones. I could pay cash or use my debit card with Macatawa Bank who is local. Money orders if needed even though my they charge me $5. Actually they are about to get the axe too, but we have other banks and credit unions that are locally based. If nothing else I can get my bankers cell phone #, they love to sell mortgages. I just don’t see how I’m going to be able to get gas and electric. Even living on Lake Michigan I don’t think I could generate enough electricity to live off. Living through this recession has given us all a character not unlike our grandparents‘. They stored bacon grease under the sink and saved butter tubs. They burned their “rubbish” and darned old socks. Grandma hemmed your pants when the tailor was closed and you had a wedding you weren’t prepared for. They worked on their own cars and built their cottages in the woods. The one good thing that I will say about this recession is that it has forced us to learn to live with less. We had our cable turned off months ago. Who needs it anymore with high-speed internet, Roku boxes and PS3’s with blue-ray players. If you are fortunate enough to have a big flat-screen and a nice stereo you are set. The Toshiba Sattelite that I am using right now has hundreds of vertical lines on the monitor making it difficult to read text. I can hook it up to an external monitor and use it to run my entertainment center. Hey, it still works. I have to jack it up with a remote control on the right side or it will overheat and crash. I just learned how to install Windows XP without having a CD the other day so it runs very well. Microsoft really got XP right. I’m a Mac user otherwise. I used Vista once, what a piece of shit that was. I guess Windows 7 is better, I’ll probably never know. When this thing pukes I’m buying a Powerbook. Never buy an Apple computer from anyone other than Apple though. I bought my G5 tower from Comp USA to later realize was a mistake I had made when I needed help with it. Same with Best Buy when I needed a battery for this laptop. You learn as you go. I’m nervous bashing these companies after watching Mc Libel, but that’s what inspired me to write this. I’m just tired of working with all of these giant faceless companies that are all smiling while holding a dagger behind their back. I’ve noticed that even Apple can be shitty at times. The applications that they deny for the iphone, the Time Capsule that dies and leaves you with no server, wifi, or backup. I love their computers and their operating systems, but they can behave like an evil giant too. I can’t boycott everyone for Christ’s sake.
After scraping through last winter I swore that I would never live like that again. In April I got the results of a blood test that my Dr. had ordered for my routine checkup. My cholesterol was nearly 300 and my liver enzymes were elevated. My father had the same problem when he was my age so I knew my goose was cooked. My Dr. told me that if i didn’t quit drinking that I was going to get fucked and not get kissed. He wrote me prescription for a drug called Librium, which is what they give you in rehab to keep the withdrawal symptoms at bay. Not unlike heroin, the withdrawal symptoms from alcohol can kill you. If you quit cold turkey you can suffer a fatal stroke. Please bear this in mind if you should ever decide to quit if needed. Fortunately, for me he also told me that it is perfectly OK for me so smoke pot because it is not metabolized by the liver. Trace amounts are for the record, but please remember that I am an out of work bartender and not a Doctor or a Pharmacist. Smoking reefer and taking the Librium truly helped me to stop drinking. Strangely I also quit biting my fingernails for the first time since I’ve had teeth. Librium is very much like Valium, so I was very, very mellow while taking it. We have saved hundreds of dollars every month by not drinking. Next we stopped going out to eat and started cooking at home every night. We soon discovered that the time we were spending cooking together was great. We began to look forward to our evenings at home with “Choppers,” our cat. Right now if you offered me a choice between a new oven and a flat-screen TV I would pick the oven. I started baking pies, brownies, cookies and recently started making my own pizza dough. I have to say that the pizza that I make is a lot better than what I can buy here. I don’t have it nailed down 100% yet, but as for the quality of the ingredients it is beyond compare. Tons of minced garlic, four different types of cheese, loads of thick pepperoni, mushrooms and my own seasoning. I haven’t started using my big kitchen aid mixer yet. My first batch tasted like exactly what it was, my first attempt at making my own dough.
I do miss being able to drink a really nice glass of Pinot Noir with dinner, or a really smoky single malt scotch afterwords. I quit drinking Coke when we opened the bar. My dentist told me to drink beer because it was better for my teeth. So I learned to enjoy Busch NA or tonic water. The tonic has 100 calories/8 oz. serving like Coke, but it tastes like a vodka and tonic and it looks like a cocktail. When I’m at home I have learned to like Pant’s sparkling water and just started drinking hot tea. Unlike coffee, the tea doesn’t make your mouth taste like shit and it doesn’t have caffeine. It’s quite delightful with a cigarette also. My last vice. I’d like to quit May 1 this year because there will no longer be smoking in bars in Michigan after that date. I may as well quit, it’s going to suck having to go outside every time you want to smoke. So long as I keep believing that anyway. between that, the price and whatever propaganda I can get my hands on about the big tobacco companies I should be able to quit. I just have to learn to hate those big companies more than Comcast, Verizon, Chase, Walmart, Nestlee and AT&T combined. Hatred and exercise should do the trick.
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