B-movie Boxcar Blues

I'm back... As you might imagine the holidays this year were pretty hard and depressing for me, but I'm not done yet - so let's get the show back on the road.

2006:

Early in the year, my sweeties sister had stopped over for a visit and I was annoyed. She was expecting her first child and was chattering on about how excited she was. Sweetie and I were decidedly less excited about it than she was. He was outwardly polite but of the opinion that she was only wanting a kid because several of her friends had kids and she was feeling left out. I was irritated by the whole situation for reasons I couldn't quite put my finger on at the time. Years later I finally figured out why I was bothered. The whole time I had known her, she was married to a guy who was adamant about not wanting to raise a family. And all that time she claimed to be on board with that, saying she didn't want kids herself. Apparently she lied about that though, and had started pressuring her husband in the hopes he would change his mind. When he didn't, their marriage began to crumble and she began seeing a different guy on the side - one who was willing to oblige her. So here she was, still married to her husband and several months pregnant by another dude. At the time they were separated but still living together, her husband knew the kid wasn't his but they hadn't filed for divorce yet because he was having medical issues and he was on her health insurance policy. According to her she still 'cared' about him and didn't want to screw him over by cutting off his health insurance. I figured out much later that I was bothered by it because I was sympathetic to her husband. Like him, I had always been adamant about not wanting to have kids of my own - and like him I had also found myself being dumped when I refused to change my mind about it. I felt bad for the guy. He'd been upfront with her from the get go that he wasn't into the kid thing, and she claimed to be of the same mindset and married him anyway. Inwardly I was worried. I had also been upfront about the subject with my sweetie... what if he was just paying me lip service as well? Was I going to get dumped again? Shit. I can not tell you how much anxiety that caused me. After she left, he reassured me that he wasn't going to ditch me because I didn't want kids, but I was still offended on behalf of my brother-in-law. I thought he was a good guy and he didn't deserve this. Fortunately she didn't visit our house very often so I was able to distance myself a bit.

It had been an unseasonably warm winter, and one 'nice' day in February I decided I wanted to go take some pictures of the Rockman statues by Tom Otterness in front of the Minneapolis courthouse. I had been there with my mom the previous fall when she had to file bankruptcy and thought the statues were pretty cool. I told my sweetie I was going to park out at the Mall of America and take the light rail downtown to take some pictures of them. My sweetie decided to come with, he was never one to pass up a chance to ride a train - any train, any distance. And I was always glad to have the company. We had a good time. It felt like a bit of an adventure and when the train picked up speed in the airport tunnel it was thrilling! The courthouse was only a block away from the train stop and I buzzed from one statue to the next taking pictures of all of them. When I was satisfied that I had taken enough pictures we hopped back on the train and returned to MoA to get something to eat before heading home to upload them to my computer.

My timing on that trip couldn't have been better. In March, we got hit with a massive snowstorm - the type they refer to as a widow maker. Around here that means the snow is so wet and heavy that people can die of a heart attack trying to shovel the sidewalks. And that's exactly what happened. The day after the snow storm, the owner of our apartment building knocked on the door and told me that my boss - the guy who ran our management company - had been found dead of a heart attack on the sidewalk in front of his house.  I had worked for him for years and I was saddened by this news. My sweetie had worked for him too, and said that's how he was probably going to go out himself - shoveling snow after a blizzard. Since he was basically a one man show, the management company no longer existed and we would be getting a different one to handle the property. The landlord to me not to worry, I would still be the building caretaker and things wouldn't change much. Since he co-owned this building with his sister, she decided that we were now going to be managed by the company that took care of her other buildings. The landlord didn't much like this particular company, but she left him little choice. It was going to be her way or the highway.

It didn't take me long to figure out that I didn't care for the new management either. They were completely up their own ass with regulations and mandatory meetings about tenant rights. The old boss was decidedly more casual about his operation. I had never had to attend any meetings while he was in charge and if we ever had a problem in our building it was quickly solved with one phone call to him. But not any more... The first meeting I had to attend was an orientation for all of us who had been managed by the old company. The new company was so afraid of their tenants suing them for discrimination that they had reams of paperwork to discuss what we could and couldn't do. All I can say is it went on entirely too long and when it was over I, and the other caretakers, couldn't get out of there fast enough.

I discovered early on that if there was a problem, they weren't going to do anything if they could help it. I was informed by the Dungeon Master and the Purple haired girl one evening that the tenants in the apartment next to his were always fighting loudly. This was upsetting to the Purple haired girl, she'd been a victim of domestic violence in the past. I asked them to let me know if it happened again since I couldn't hear any of it from my apartment downstairs and I informed the management company of the situation. Their response was pretty apathetic, and they told me to call the police if I thought the woman was in danger. Ok then... So that's what I did. The next time I was informed they were fighting, I called the cops. The cops took half an hour to come over and by then the fight was over. The woman insisted that everything was just fine thank you and refused to say anything against her abusive boyfriend. The cops left without doing a thing. Ugh. As time wore on, these two would become a major thorn in my side and the new management refused to do anything.

My sweeties sister has a lot of tattoos. She had become friends with the artist who did my sweeties armband a few years earlier and as a result she had acquired a lot of really nice ink. One day in April she called my sweetie and told him the artist had an apprentice at her shop who needed to do some work to fill out his hours for his apprenticeship. Since she was pregnant she couldn't help out but she thought her brother might be willing. He was. She said she'd foot the bill for it, and we drove over to Minneapolis to discuss what he wanted to get done and set up the appointment. After thinking about it a bit, my sweetie decided to get a Walleye skeleton on his forearm. He had an old tat recolored. He also got two cuffs made of musical symbols - a G clef, F clef, natural, rest. I was jealous and told him so - I had a bunch of youthful stupidity on my bicep that I was wanting to vanish. "No fair! You're getting all this new ink and I've been waiting forever to get the cash together just to get my cover up done" I said. He nodded sympathetically and said he'd give up some of his chair time so I could get mine done too. Me: "Really?" Him: "Yes." Me: "Sweet!! Thank you sweetie!" Him: *grinning* "I love my sweetie!" When we went in for his next appointment, he told the apprentice our plan and the guy said 'Sure, no problem!' The next appointment was mine and I had him cover up the stuff on my bicep with a customized Celtic knot work Yin Yang symbol I had commissioned from the Dungeon Master years earlier. I also had an old tat recolored as well. I was grateful to my sweetie for giving up some of his ink so I could have some too and I couldn't have been happier with them. Sweeties sister got into a bit of a twist over it though. She was willing to foot the bill for his ink, but was not happy about paying for mine even though he told her he had given up some of his chair time so I could have some. The way he saw it, the bill was going to be the same whether it was him getting inked or me. That was the end of that though - she put the kabosh on it and there weren't any more appointments after that. D'oh! Sorry sweetie...but thank you! I love my tats!

In May the Purple haired girl began having a problem with her mailbox. The door was warped somehow and impossible to close. In the course of trying to repair it for her, I opened the box right next to hers and was nearly knocked over by the explosion of mail that flew out of it. For some reason the guy in apartment 1 hadn't been collecting his mail and the postman just kept stuffing the box instead of saying something about it. His car was in the lot but I knew he'd had a heart problem and thought maybe he was in the hospital again. I gathered it all up and figured I'd put it in his apartment for him. I grabbed the key for his place, knocked loudly on the door, opened it a crack and announced myself - "Management!" I didn't get an answer so I swung the door open and entered, planning to leave the mail on his table. The tenant was laying face down on the floor and I knew as soon as I saw him that he was dead. Oh shit. I set the mail on the floor and quickly left the apartment to call the police. I asked the people in the apartment next to him when they'd seen him last, and could use their phone. They said it had been a few days... I called 911 and told them I had just discovered one of our tenants dead in his apartment. 911 operator says "Are you sure he's dead?" I said "Oh yeah...I'm pretty sure he's dead." 911 asks "How do you know?" I said "His eyes are cloudy and his hands and feet are black, also he's not breathing." With that, the neighbors immediately ran to the apartment next door to gawk at him. Really you guys?! Are you fucking kidding me?! 911 said they'd send a paramedic. I said they needed to send a coroner. Then I hung up and shooed the neighbors out of his apartment, locked the door and went to sit on the front step and wait for the paramedics to arrive. They got there with some cops in tow and while they were hauling in bags of equipment I told them they weren't going to need any of it. They took one look at him and agreed. I had to answer a bunch of questions for the cops who told me I had done the right thing by checking the apartment when I discovered the mail situation. The new management disagreed and told me I had violated that tenants right to privacy by entering his apartment the way I did. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!! You have GOT to be kidding me! I guess I was supposed to have let the guy lay there until he started to smell before notifying anyone. I was pretty creeped out. He'd been gone for a few days at least and after they took him out you could still see the imprint of him in the carpet.
Fortunately, the landlord was sympathetic. He said he'd have handled it the same way and we had a good laugh talking about the idiots at the management company.

Life goes on. Sweetie was having trouble with his old motorcycle - something was always breaking on it, shit he couldn't fix, and it had been in and out of the shop. His mom decided that in honor of his continued sobriety, he should have something more reliable. She offered to buy him a new (used) bike and they found a nice Harley in her price range. And man, he rode the shit out of that bike! Suddenly he was jumping at any chance to go for a ride - if I needed something from the store, "I'll get it!" and he was gone in a flash. Lol, even if it was tampons! He didn't care, he just wanted an excuse to ride somewhere. His friend the Greasemonkey acquired an old chopper with plans to get it running and ride with my sweetie...

Around this time, sweeties sister had her baby. I expressed disinterest and my sweetie was happy for the excuse to ride his motorcycle over to her house to see him. She was still married to her husband but had moved in with the new guy. Meanwhile on the home front, the feuding couple (who I'm going to call Punch and Judy) were at it again. This time they had a screaming match that I could actually hear down in my place. Then I saw Judy go out to the parking lot and get in a car that arrived during the fight. At first I thought she was finally leaving him and had called for a ride - but no. They sat in the car for a few minutes and then her head disappeared into the guys lap. Eww. Really? Five minutes later she was trotting back upstairs and they were yelling at each other again. So I put in another call to the cops. This time when they arrived I told them about the fight, her visit to the car in the lot and that she was unlikely to say anything was wrong when they went upstairs. I told them the only reason I called them was to generate a paper trail so management could evict them. They were always noisy, slamming doors and fighting - and Judy was in the habit of going to the grocery store, hauling the shopping carts all the way home and abandoning them in the backyard of the building. This had happened three or four times before I caught her in the act. When I asked her to stop she got pissy with me and told me to mind my own business. Since keeping the building and the yard clean was my job, I figured it was in fact my business. All I could do was call the store to fetch their carts and report the shenanigans to management (who refused to do anything).

My one moment of triumph that month came when the Freak Show's dog managed to get out of his yard (chicken wire is ineffective at containing a pit bull - who knew?) and came down into our yard again. Me and my sweetie were sitting in the house watching TV when we suddenly heard a commotion outside followed by the sound of the dog squealing and yelping in pain. We ran to the window just in time to see our resident groundhog attacking the dog and practically pissed ourselves laughing. (The groundhog had made a burrow in our yard a few years earlier and the nice old man across the hall from me was always feeding her. She'd had several litters of babies there, and was so used to the old man that he was able to hand feed her.) The dog had tried to attack her and she fought back. Freak Show ran out of his house, saw the dog in our yard and noticed it was bleeding pretty good when he hopped the fence to get it. He was pissed off and demanding to know what happened to his dog. We explained that the dog had escaped his yard and gotten into a fight with our groundhog, and the groundhog won. Now he was really pissed and wanting to know where the groundhog was - threatening to kill it. We told him that was a bad idea and convinced him that groundhogs are protected (no, they're not really) and he'd face jail time if he hurt it. We must have been convincing because he decided against it and fixed the fence instead.

Around June, my sweeties friend the Greasemonkey came over one day and told my sweetie that the transportation museum was going to be running one of their old steam trains through town the next day on an excursion. Sweetie was so excited you'd have thought he was five years old and the next day was Christmas. We worked fast trying to find out which track it was going to be on and where we should be so we could see it when it went by. I grabbed my camera and we hopped in the Greasemonkey's van to go scout our location. We were looking for a place where we could have a good view and checked a few locations and I took test pictures. One spot was a park by the river that was right next to the tracks. It started to get dark out while we were there and I went back to the van to wait while the fellas weighed our options. I was sitting in the van reviewing pictures and waiting for them when a squad pulled up and two cops got out and asked me what I was doing there. I told them I was waiting for my sweetie and his friend to come back, and that we were looking for a place to watch the 261 come through the next day. They wanted to know what that was and I explained that it was an old steam train and that I intended to take pictures of it. They looked at me like I had spiders coming out of my ears. "Why would you want to take pictures of a train?" they asked. "It's an antique steam engine! It's gonna be puffing smoke and they just look cool!" I replied. "Why wouldn't I want to take pictures of it?" They looked confused. "Okaaay...well the park is closed for the night - you have to leave." "Yep. I see them coming back now, we'll be going." The cops asked and got the same story from them so we were allowed to get back in the van and leave. The next morning me, my sweetie and the Dungeon Master raced to the location we decided to watch from. Sweetie was grumpy and certain we were late and there was a fair amount of squabbling between us as I fractured some traffic laws getting us there. We arrived and waited...and waited... Now I was starting to get grumpy. I'm not a morning person and if we missed it I was never gonna hear the end of it. Then suddenly I saw a puff of smoke over the trees in the distance. "I think it's coming" I said. Sweetie looked where I was pointing and agreed. We got our cameras ready - and there it was! It was moving pretty fast for a steam train and it was wicked cool with its big plume of smoke trailing behind. I snapped as many pictures as I could of the engine, and we waved at all the passengers who were smiling and waving back at us. And then it was gone. Time to race back home and upload the pictures! They were some of the coolest photos I've ever taken, I had the best one blown up to poster size and framed. It's still hanging on my wall right now.

That summer I also planned my first large planter garden. I pitched the idea to my sweetie and he thought it was a cool idea. I found the logs we used to build it at a free trade site online and with the help of the Greasemonkey, me and my sweetie went to fetch them. We arrived at the house getting rid of them and discovered that they were currently being a retaining wall - we'd have to disassemble it to get the logs we wanted. It was back breaking work but we somehow pulled it off and loaded Greasemonkey's van full. Back at home though, all I had to do was stand and point. I felt guilty about that, but they assured me that they could handle it. Once it was assembled, we brought in a truckload of dirt and filled it. When it was done it looked like it had been professionally built.

July we made our annual pilgrimage to Harriet Island for the Taste of Minnesota to see the bands play. Alice Cooper came that year and later that month Ribfest had Ted Nugent. Alas, I missed Uncle Ted - It was so hot outside I couldn't function, so I told my sweetie to go without me. He also saw Robin Trower at the Fitzgerald and waited in line to get an autograph after the show. Trower was one of the artists on my sweeties 'must see' list. He never missed a Trower show. We went to Pine city to visit our friends, have some barbeque and sit around the bonfire. We also went to my dad's place in Moose Lake and had fun driving around on his atv's. When we got back home, the Dungeon Master went upstairs to his apartment and then came right back down to inform me that it looked like someone had tried to break into Punch and Judy's place. I went upstairs and looked - it appeared that someone had tried to rip the door off it's hinges. The molding was hanging off and there was a bag of random crap sitting on the floor next to the door. I went outside to see if either of them were around and discovered our tall ladder was leaning up against the building at their window. While I was looking at that, Judy arrived home and I discovered that she had been locked out of her apartment. Apparently she went to the store or something and didn't take her keys. While she was gone, Punch took off and locked the place up. Instead of waiting for him to come back or calling management to send someone to unlock it, she decided to try and bust her own door down. When that failed she tried to break in through her window (hence the ladder). *sigh* The landlord was annoyed and management didn't care.

August was my sweeties birthday and for the first time I decided not to go with to his mom's house for his birthday party. It was just too hot and she always invited too many people. They always wanted to chat me up and I just wanted to be left alone. I didn't feel like socializing with his mom's friends and I didn't want to be rude to them, so I just didn't go. Later in the month I was over to her house by myself - I don't remember why I was there - but I remember that when I was helping her haul her trash can out she made some offhand comment about how it must be hard to put up with my sweetie since he wasn't very physically affectionate (or something along those lines). Wait, what?! What the hell is she talking about?! I assured her that not only was he affectionate but I was very happy with him. I was creeped out though - it sounded like she was implying something. I did not want to be talking to his mom about my sex life, and quite frankly it was none of her business if I was getting laid regularly or not. Why would she even bring it up? After that my attitude toward her began to sour.

September the four of us (me, sweetie, Dungeon Master and Purple haired girl) went to the Renaissance festival, and the Dungeon Master proposed to the Purple haired girl. She said yes.
Meanwhile back at home, Punch and Judy were still up to their usual shit and I figured out a way to make their lives miserable for a change. I noticed the tags on Punch's van had expired (it also wasn't running) and when I called management to tell them about the latest disturbances they caused I let that little fact slip. Without missing a beat, the new boss told me to have it towed. I couldn't believe it. After all the crap they had been pulling, it's expired tags that finally gets a response?! Wow. Whatever...I called the tow company and vanished his van on him. Finally some payback. The dirtbag was always trying to intimidate me when I had to deal with him, but unlike his old lady I wasn't scared of him and that really pissed him off. When the van disappeared he sent Judy down to ask me why it was towed. I told her it was towed because all the vehicles in the lot had to be running, insured and the tags current - his had been broke down for several months, and it had expired tags on out of state plates. She said ok and left. Five minutes later she's back and he's with her. He's holding a running tape recorder in his hand and immediately starts berating me about towing his van and how he's going to get me fired. I calmly (yes really) told him his vehicle was violating the lots rules and that management told me to tow it. If he had a problem he should call them. He hollered about how he was going to go to Wisconsin to get new tags next week and I had no right, etc.. I pointed out that since he lives in Minnesota he was breaking the rules by keeping his van registered in Wisconsin (he was doing it because Wisconsin doesn't require insurance - Minnesota does) to try and get around the lots 'must be insured' rule. So I had it towed. Then he got all excited thinking he had somehow caught me admitting to doing something wrong on tape and said I was going to get fired. I told him all he had on tape was me admitting that I had done what my boss told me to do, so good luck with that - and shut the door in his face. Hearing him have a hissy fit in the hall after that made it all worth it. Hey, normally I'm reasonable but this jackass and his old lady had pushed me to the edge a long time ago. Call me a bitch - I don't care.

A short time after that, the guy in the apartment across the hall from them moved out and I asked the landlord if I could move to that unit. I pointed out that I had been living in my current apartment for 12 years and it was needing repairs that would be easier to accomplish if it was vacant. I suggested that Punch and Judy might be better behaved if they had the caretaker living across the hall as well. The landlord agreed and gave it the thumbs up.

It took less than two hours for my sweetie and the Greasemonkey to move our stuff up to the new apartment. Punch and Judy noticed right away and their distress was audible across the hall. We were there less than a day and I could hear them planning to move out of the building.
Me and my sweetie squabbled briefly over how to arrange the furniture in the new place - in the end I went with his suggestion and felt stupid for arguing about it in the first place. The new place was awesome - we had a perfect view of the downtown skyline and tons more sunlight than the old place. It was the same size as the old one but it somehow felt bigger. Since we were now on the top floor it also felt less like we were living in a fishbowl, and there was no need for the pervert shield anymore. No one could see into our place without a high powered telescope.

The Dungeon Master ran a D&D campaign with his buddy the Gamer every weekend and the Purple haired girl had joined the campaign. Late one evening in November just as I was getting ready to crash, there was a panicked knock on my door. I opened it and there was the Dungeon Master looking freaked out and telling me the building was on fire. What?! I immediately called the fire department with one hand and started shaking my sweetie awake with the other. He heard me saying fire and was out of bed and dressed in seconds. It turned out the fire was in the Purple haired girls apartment on the first floor. The stoves in the building were from the 1970's and had push buttons instead of dials and her very rambunctious kitties had managed to kick a burner on while hopping on or off the counter. This caught a dish cloth on fire which then caught the microwave on fire which...well you get the idea. With the fire department on the way I raced around the building waking up anyone who was home and getting them outside. My sweetie and the Dungeon Master raced down to the Purple haired girls apartment and ran inside to rescue her kitties. While they were in there my sweetie discovered the hot burner and turned it off. There was no flame happening, it was all just smoldering and producing acrid black smoke. When the fire department got there all they needed to do was make sure nothing else was burning and they set up some giant fans to pump the smoke out. Her apartment was completely trashed. Fortunately, the apartment next to mine and right across the hall from the Dungeon Master had recently been vacated, so the landlord moved her up there. Now that all of us were living on the same floor together it was a lot less running up and down the stairs - that was a bonus.

When December rolled around, Punch and Judy had another knock down drag out fight. They waited until we weren't home to do it, and we returned to find random shit all over the stairwells. A bunch of clothes and personal items...and their cat. It looked like someone had just grabbed armfuls of stuff and flung it over the railing. I took a bunch of pictures to document it and once again called management about them. As usual, management didn't do a damned thing.

I don't know exactly when I noticed it, but during this year my sweetie started losing a lot of weight. He was already a skinny guy, so this wasn't a good thing. He didn't have any extra weight to spare. He was also spending a lot more time in the bathroom all of a sudden. At first I worried that he had fallen off the wagon and was keeping booze stashed in there, but one day while he was out on a bike ride I went over the house with a fine tooth comb and came up empty. I was starting to worry and suggested he get a check up with a doctor. He said he was fine and suggested that I was the one who should see a doctor since I was always getting the hiccups and that 'wasn't normal'. So I let it go. By December though, he was starting to have trouble catching his breath when he'd climb the stairs. We figured it was just that he wasn't used to the two extra flights he had to climb now. His mom had also noticed this shortness of breath and finally talked him into going to see her pulmonologist, Doctor Fail. Doctor Fail said it was probably asthma and prescribed an inhaler - the first of several misdiagnoses she'd give.

Despite all of this, we thought life was good. We were happy, our friends were near and we loved our new apartment.

You're my best friend

2005 was an eventful year for us on a near epic scale. So many things happened that year that honestly, it was hard to remember all of it - but I'll do my best...

It was the year I discovered (and joined) a site called deviantArt - a place where I could post the pictures I had taken, projects I was working on and my lame attempts at drawing. I still have an account there today.

It was also the year that I started becoming agoraphobic. I think that was triggered by the guy that moved into the house behind us. He seemed normal enough when I met him, but that was going to change. We had more or less 'adopted' a bunch of stray cats that had taken up residence in our backyard. They used to live in the salvage yard that was down the hill from us, but the property was sold, cleared and now being developed - so they all migrated uphill. My sweetie liked to sit out there and feed them in the morning while he was having his coffee. He'd buy packages of cheap hotdogs, cut them into small chunks and toss them to the cats. Eventually they became friendly enough that they'd let us pet them. One day we came home and the new neighbor (who I'll call Freak Show) came to the fence that divided our yards and asked us if the cats were ours. We said "Not really, they're strays - but they're friendly and we feed them." He said there was a kitten under his porch and he was afraid his dogs would get it, would I mind getting it out? I said 'sure, no problem' and went to retrieve the kitten. It only took a few minutes to chase it out (and I wondered why he didn't just do it himself) but as I was holding the kitten (and getting clawed for my trouble) he asked if that didn't hurt. I laughed at him and said no. My tattoos hurt worse. I told him "It's just a kitten - they aren't a threat to anything but mice really" and turned it loose in our yard.

I've always been a night owl, and shortly after the kitten rescue I was up late one evening playing a new game I'd just gotten on my computer. My sweetie was sleeping, so I had the lights off and was sitting in the dark alternating between watching the tv and playing my new game. The tv was behind me, so I had to keep swiveling the chair around to see it and then back to the computer. Around 2am, I noticed the Freak Show's lights were on and since he didn't have any curtains hanging I could see right into his room. I only gave it a passing glance as I swiveled around and went back to watching my movie. About 15 minutes later I noticed movement out of the corner of my eye and turned to look - and there was the Freak Show, standing in his window, stark naked, looking into my apartment grinning and jacking off. From his place the only window in our building that he could see into is mine, and I had the distinct impression he wanted me to see him. Ewwww! Creepy! I have got nothing against people masturbating, but I didn't need to see that and I definitely didn't ask to see it. I didn't acknowledge that I'd seen him, and instead I went upstairs to visit my friend the Dungeon Master who was playing D&D with his buddy. I told him about it and we had a good laugh over it. By the time I went back downstairs the 'show' was over and I went back to playing my game.

A few hours later the sun was coming up and I was getting ready to crash when I heard something outside. It was the Freak Show's pit-bull running around in my backyard. A scary looking dog. I considered calling animal control on him but by the time they'd get there the dog would probably be gone anyway. Then I heard the most horrifying noise on the back steps. I looked outside and saw the dog had one of our stray momma kitties in its mouth and was shaking her like a rag! The poor kitty was screaming, I was screaming, days old kittens were scattered across the sidewalk. My sweetie heard me freaking out and ran outside without even waiting to see what was going on, he scared off the dog who then dropped kitty and split. The kitty freaked out, ran off and disappeared leaving her babies behind. We gathered up the babies and reassembled their shelter and kept watch waiting for momma to come back. At this point I thought she was injured and had gone off somewhere to die and the kittens were orphans. Freak Show came outside and called his dog and my sweetie (nicely) advised him to keep the dog on a leash. Momma kitty eventually came back and moved the kittens, but I was pissed off. There had been several pit-bull attacks in the Twin Cities that year and here this asshole was, letting his dog run loose. After that I called animal control on him any time I saw his dog in our yard.

Shortly after that I got a new digital camera which was a huge improvement over the old one. I was now capable of taking hundreds of pictures without having to pay for film developing and I went out often to find stuff to photograph. My sweetie always came with and when I couldn't think of anyplace to go, he could. We went to Carvers Cave, Como Zoo, Swede Hollow, we saw concerts at The Taste of Minnesota - I toted that camera with me everywhere and took pictures of everything. My deviantArt gallery grew quickly. Suddenly I had people telling me I take really good pictures and that I have a good eye. My answer to them was the same then as it is now - "I just take pictures of what I see, the camera does all the work."

I had almost forgotten about the Freak Show and his dogs for a few weeks, but then he was at it again. I made many calls to animal control (as did our other neighbors) when he let his dog run loose. For their part, they kept telling him that if he didn't comply he'd be fined and they'd eventually seize his dogs. So he finally started putting the dogs on a leash - but the leash was long enough that the dog could run into the yard of the Hmong people next door where it would wind itself around their satellite dish and screw up their signal. When the elderly lady of the house would come out to fix it, she'd yell at him and the Freak Show just cussed her out like it was her fault and his dog had every right to be in her yard. More calls to animal control and he finally put up a fence to keep the dog in his own yard. It was an incredibly flimsy looking thing and I doubted it would contain them.
He also resumed his exhibitionist behavior.

After the first incident, I just started closing my curtains as soon as it got dark out - but now the weather was getting warmer and we only had two windows. We had an air conditioner, but it was old and didn't work properly. All it did was make a lot of noise, drive up the electric bill and instead of cooling the place off it actually made it hotter. We had to open the windows, there just wasn't any way around it. We did our best to block the windows so he couldn't see in but we could have some air flow. Then one night while my sweetie was off at a concert with Former Roommate #2, I discovered that despite our efforts the Freak Show could still see in. In fact, not only could he see in but he was spying on me with a scope in one hand and his dick in the other. Just like the first incident, as soon as he saw me he stood up and started doing his thing. That was too much for me so this time I called the police and told them about it. It was a huge waste of time though, the cop that came out said he couldn't do anything unless I had pictures or something and why don't I just keep my window closed (ummm, because it's over 80 degrees outside and the air conditioner doesn't work?!). Since my camera isn't good enough to take pictures across the yard in the dark I figured there was nothing I could do. I had a large curtain I was using as a partial room divider and my sweetie rigged it so it now went all the way across. We could have the window open to keep the apartment cool and the Freak couldn't see in anymore. He did it just so I could sit at my computer comfortably again - I loved him for that.

Freak wasn't going to let that stop him though. He was always sitting in his window at night just waiting for me, and as soon as I was on the other side of the curtain he'd pop up and do his thing. I just heaved a sigh and quickly retreated to the other side of the curtain. One night we even caught him climbing up the tree in our yard and snapping off branches. My sweetie went outside to confront him - "What the hell are you doing?" and the Freak claimed that he was just trying to improve the view of skyline from his window. (Bullshit! He was trying to see if he could see in the other window!) My sweetie thought this was a believable excuse though. He told him to do it in the daytime and ask permission first. Freak climbed back down and went back in his house. When my sweetie came back in and told me what the Freak said, I called bullshit and told him why I thought he was in our tree.

By this point I'd had more than enough of the Freak and I figured if the cops wanted photo proof, I'd try to get it for them. I immediately went to ebay and found a web camera with night vision and ordered it up, along with a usb cord long enough to go from the window to my computer. When they arrived my sweetie helped me create a housing for it. We wanted it to be protected from rain and snow, so we mounted a bird feeder outside the window, removed one of the glass panels and mounted the camera inside it. Less than 15 minutes later and I was able to see the backyard and the Freaks house on my computer screen. I rubbed my hands together with glee - I couldn't wait to catch him! My plan was to make several cd copies of the video - one for the cops, several for the neighbors, I also planned to burn a stack of them labeled with his address and have a friend leave them in the mens room of the gay bar downtown. I figured if he wanted an audience I'd help him out. My evil plan did not come to fruition however. The Freak noticed the bird feeder - and the camera - and that very night decided to hang a bed sheet curtain in his window. I didn't really care how the problem was solved, I was just happy he stopped - but I left the camera in place anyway, just in case.

Shortly after that, it was my sweeties birthday - his 40th. He was still sober and his mom wanted to make a big deal of it, so she threw him a birthday party at her house and invited everyone she could think of. I didn't really want to go to a party at her house. I knew it would be packed with people and crowded, but it was a milestone event and I'd been trapped in my apartment for the past few months by mean dogs and their Freak of an owner so I decided to go. At the time we were feeding the Dungeon Master on a regular basis (I had learned he was short on grocery money and having been friends since our teens, I would not let him go hungry). My sweetie and I convinced him to come with us because there'd be lots of food and we weren't cooking that evening. He didn't want to go, but we talked him into it.


As I expected, the party was crowded. There were people all over the yard and in the house - a pretty even mix of his friends and family members. Even his dad was there which was rather amazing because his parents were divorced and didn't really get along. For some reason I was being hailed as some kind of hero because my sweetie had succeeded in staying sober. I still don't think I deserved as much credit for that as they gave me. Then the younger of his aunts arrived with a cheerful purple haired young lady in tow. It turned out that she was staying with his aunt who also talked her into coming along with the promise of food and company. As the party wore on, the groups began to segregate and all of us 'cool kids' were sitting around in the back yard while all the 'old' people (the non-partier types) and small kids were hanging out inside. It was then that the Dungeon Master met the cheerful purple haired girl and was instantly smitten. The two of them began chatting in an animated fashion. Later some of us decided to take a recreational smoke break in our friends van before he left and we invited the younger aunt (also a smoker) to join us. She said 'maybe later' but suggested that the purple haired girl would likely be interested in joining us. My sweetie and I beamed at each other. She smokes too?! She and the Dungeon Master would be a match made in Heaven! She did join us in the van, and later when I gave her and my sweeties aunt a ride home - she and the Dungeon Master continued chattering excitedly with each other. When we arrived at the aunts house and she offered the Dungeon Master a glass of chocolate milk, I knew it was a done deal! Just like feeding a stray cat, if you offer the Dungeon Master chocolate milk you'll never get rid of him. When we finally returned to our home, we considered the day to be a huge success. Over the next few weeks, the Dungeon Master began visiting the Purple Haired Girl frequently and moped around our apartment pining for her when she wasn't around.


A few weeks later, we made another trip to our favorite camp ground and a few weeks after that a group of us went to the renaissance festival together. The Dungeon Master invited the Purple Haired Girl to come along, and they both went in costume. A good time was had by all. Not long after that though, we had a power surge and it fried my computer. I lost all the pictures I had taken because I had neglected to burn them to disks. That depressed me more that I can say... It was a few months before I was able to get a new system, and when I finally did I was almost fanatical about making sure to back up my data for quite some time. Meanwhile, the Purple Haired Girl (which actually isn't a good name for her because her hair had by that time had also been pink, blue and orange) moved out of my sweeties aunts house and into an apartment of her own in our building. The Dungeon Master was determined to woo her at any cost and my sweetie and I were endlessly amused by his efforts at nesting. He sought our advice on numerous things, but the one that made us giggle the most was when he wanted to know what kind of toilet paper women preferred. Lmao! (our answer: ANY kind! Just make sure to have some in the house!) Before long, and despite her protesting, they were an official couple. Our trio became a quartet.


Meanwhile my sweetie and I were getting along better than we ever had, but things weren't altogether well with me. Even though we had thwarted the Freak in his exhibitionist habits, he was still there and I couldn't be outside anymore without feeling like I was being watched. And the few times he was outside at the same time as me, he had said shit. I began to feel ever more uncomfortable and started avoiding the back yard. Eventually I stopped going outside if I could help it, and when I did go out I came and went through the front door just to avoid him. I became more and more depressed and I started gaining weight, which added to the depression. I felt trapped. If I didn't have my sweetie, I think I would have wound up in a loony bin. Fortunately I did have him, and he didn't care at all that I had put on weight.

Take me to the river

In September things started going downhill. My sweetie still felt well enough that he wanted to do the laundry, but climbing back up the stairs was taking it out of him. He'd make it back into the apartment and collapse on the couch, completely winded and needing to rest. Me and our friends downstairs (the dungeon master and his wife) wanted him to let us help him - at least let one of us carry the basket up and down - and he dismissed the idea. As long as he was able to, he wanted to do things on his own. Still, it was obviously wearing him out and he was spending more and more time napping on the couch.

Early one morning I woke up hearing a chainsaw. I grumbled and tried to go back to sleep, but no dice - the chainsaw just kept going. WIIIiiiiinnnGGGGwiiiiinnnngggggugugugh.... I put the pillow over my head trying to muffle it. Nope, no good. Finally, frustrated, I threw the covers back and got out of bed to investigate. I looked out the living room window and saw nothing. I remember complaining about it to my sweetie who was sitting on the couch watching tv and apparently hadn't even noticed it. Grumpy and bleary eyed, I went out to the kitchen and threw open the back door... and saw a guy in our backyard hollering instructions to another guy (with a chainsaw) in a cherry picker. Apparently the neighbors behind us had decided to cut down the tree that was on the border of our yards. It was a mess and there were branches all over our yard. I hollered to my sweetie to come look and when we both stepped out onto the balcony, the guy who was hollering instructions noticed us and cheerfully asked if we had been having trouble with our phone. "Nope", we said, "we don't even use the phone lines." So that was it...they decided to chop the whole tree down because one of the branches had grown around a phone line. *sigh* We loved that tree - it blocked the house behind us from view and gave the yard a little shade. In no time flat it was nothing but a stump and our yard felt a lot less private. The guy then asked if it would be ok to haul the branches out through our driveway. "Yep, fine. Just don't fuck up our swimming pool." The guy promised he'd be careful and we went back inside.

About a week later we decided summer was officially over, emptied the pool and packed it back into it's box. We also dismantled the deck garden and hauled the flower pots, chairs and shade umbrella down to the garage. I noticed that he was piling the pots on the floor off to the side instead of putting them up on the shelf where we normally kept them - and that's when I knew it was starting to get bad. He was a tall guy, and always took advantage of high spaces for storage. Our entire time together, I was always having to ask him to please get this bowl down for me, or reach up and change that light bulb. Tall guy stuff. Now it hurt for him to raise his arms over his head repeatedly, but he'd still grab the mixing bowl for me if I needed it. I could see it hurt though, and tried not to bother him with it if I could. Apparently it bothered him more to see me climbing the counter because he'd fetch it before I reached it and then help me back down again.

His family members were coming over a lot more frequently - his mom, dad, sister and his cousin. They all came over separately and they would sit around making pleasant conversation or snap some photos of him - then as soon as he was out of earshot they'd ask me in hushed tones how he was doing and tell me how brave and strong I was to deal with this. Inwardly I bristled at this. I did not consider myself to be brave or strong at all - I was terrified and anxious. I could keep it together when I was at home with him, but when I was alone in my car running errands, I'd lose it completely and cry my eyes out. I started keeping a box of tissue in the car just so I could dry my eyes when I got where I was going or returned home. I didn't want anyone to see me crying. I didn't want to be pitied. But here they were, doing just that. His dad would come over and buy us lunch, when his sister came over she brought coffee. His mom brought whatever item she happened to come across that she thought he could use - things like hot beverage heaters. She also decided that she was going to redecorate her living room and gave us her electric fireplace which we gratefully accepted. It's got an oak mantle and also works as a space heater. The dungeon master and my sweetie hauled it upstairs. I offered to help carry but my sweetie said 'no - he'd get it' - so typical of him. Part of me wonders if he wasn't trying to make a point with his mom - "I'm not dead yet! Quit trying to baby me!" She had been trying to fawn over him ever since his diagnosis and acting like a bit of a martyr while she did so. I think it was as annoying to him as it was to me.

His cousin was the daughter of his mothers oldest sister and they practically grew up together. Her parents have a place in Marine on the St. Croix - a beautiful house on the bluff along the river. They also have a pontoon boat, and his cousin asked us if we wanted to go out for a boat ride. We both like boat rides and jumped at the chance. I brought the camera along and took pictures of the scenery and my sweetie as we were enjoying the ride, but it was a chilly day and we set out late, so we didn't stay out very long. She promised she'd take us back out again though, before they pulled the boat out of the water for the season - hopefully it would be a warmer day, and we promised that we would hold her to it. Back at her parents house, her mom had gotten out her camera and there was more photos being taken. Then we hopped in the car and I drove us back home.

A week or so later, and it was time for another scan to be done. He had to drink another bottle of what he called the nastiest orange shake drink he'd ever tasted, and then we had to wait for enough of it to circulate through him before they did the scan. I remember sitting there and foolishly hoping against hope that the results wouldn't be bad. When the scan was finished, they set an appointment for him to see his oncologist and get the results on October 1st. Neither of us spoke about it on the ride back home. We talked about anything but doctors, tests and results.

Rubber Biscuit

2004 started with me being turned down for disability and filing for an appeal. In the meantime we were living on welfare, my building caretaking gig and whatever odd jobs my sweetie could line up. Welfare in Minnesota is $200 a month and my rent was $190 a month after my caretaker pay was applied. I also received an allotment of food stamps, but there are certain things you can't buy with your food card - like toilet paper, soap, and other miscellaneous hygiene products. So we had a roof over our head, and our bellies were full, but if we didn't figure out a way to generate extra cash we were going to be smelly. Something had to be done. My case worker was also upset to discover that my sweetie was living with me because his official address was at his moms house. Even though my sweetie didn't have a permanent job and his moms place was just a mailing address for him, the case worker said he felt it was fraudulent for him to be there without the folks at welfare knowing about it. For my part, I felt it wasn't any of the welfare offices business if my boyfriend was staying at my house more than his moms. Telling them he was there would only complicate things - so my case worker quit. I didn't care. The guy wasn't really doing anything to help me, he just showed up and asked questions, jotted down some notes and left. I'm not even really sure just what his job was supposed to be...

For a while my sweetie and I worked together on a few painting gigs, and I did laundry for the guy who lived upstairs from us to get some extra cash. Things were really tight there for a while but somehow we managed to keep our heads above water. Another thing I did for extra cash was house cleaning for my old friend the Hoarder.

Some background: I had known the Hoarder since I was about 15 and he hadn't always been a hoarder, a series of tragic life events had triggered it. One of his brothers had died, then another brother fled the state to escape jail time after he was caught embezzling from his job. His sister - the twin of the embezzler - committed suicide, and his father passed away shortly after that. The dudes family had pretty much gone up in a puff of smoke and I felt bad for him. During my teen years we were music buddies, we shared our tapes and albums between us and always tried to stump each other with new stuff the other hadn't heard. He wasn't the first hoarder I'd ever met, but he was the first one I ever tried to help clean up.

The Hoarder used to live a quarter mile from my house in a once beautiful turn of the century home, and despite the deplorable condition of his home I used to visit him frequently. He was full of interesting stories, and quite computer savvy. He spent most all of his free time downloading movies and tons, TONS of music. He had everything I ever heard of and even more that I hadn't, all of which he burned to disks and sent copies home with me. If I was looking for any particular piece of music, the Hoarder had it or he could get it and thanks to him I now have a music library that numbers in the thousands. My sweetie used to go over there with me every once in a while largely because he was awestruck by the Hoarders vast music library, but he didn't really like going over there and was less forgiving of the mess than I was. There was barely anyplace clean to sit, there was bags, boxes and trash piled high everywhere, and the place was infested with mice. When my sweetie was with me, our visits weren't very long.

Anyway, the whole house was pretty well trashed. The Hoarder and his girlfriend (who also happened to be a hoarder) had the place packed from basement to attic with an immense amount of stuff. There was just little pathways through all of it. Compounding the problem was their pets - 4 dogs, 3 cats and a bird who wasn't doing very well. Both the Hoarder and his girlfriend were pretty lazy about cleaning the litter box and letting the dogs out, so the whole place stank of animal shit on top of it. When you add to it that they were also compulsive internet shoppers, well... it was a perfect storm of filth. Still, he was my friend and I didn't want to offend him so I just held my breath a lot when I went over there and didn't say anything about it.

It all came to a head for him one day when the mailman came to deliver a package and got a look beyond the front door. Like most hoarders, they had kept their mess a secret - all the shades pulled and no one they didn't know was allowed in. This time though, the hall door was open and the mailman got a good look inside. The next thing they knew, a public housing inspector was coming over and they were told to clean it all up or their house would be condemned. So the Hoarder called me and asked if I could help tidy the place up. I had no idea what I was in for...and my sweetie - ever the wise one - opted to stay home.

We started on the Hoarders computer room, and at first things were going ok. He had no problem with me hauling out all the empty soda cans and the trash that was on the floor. But when we started on the other stuff.... There was a mountain of stuff to dig through, and it was very much like an archeological dig. He had piles of boxes from Fire Mountain - all unopened. The guy had spent hundreds of dollars on beads and jewelry making supplies and never even opened the boxes when they arrived! Sandwiched between the boxes were articles of clothing and unopened bills and more trash. All of it had been the top of the pile at one time or other - he just kept piling more on top of it. You could tell by the postmarks when stuff had last seen the light of day. Then we finally got to the 'bottom' of that pile, a large trash bag full of old clothes - and the Hoarder had to go through every thing in the bag. I pointed out to him that by the dates we'd seen in the pile, he hadn't seen or used anything in this bag in nearly 10 years. Nope. Gotta go through ALL of it. It was all full of mouse shit and about midway through the bag he pulled out a sweater that had a hole in the belly the size of a dinner plate. Mice had gotten into the bag and were disassembling it to use as nesting material. The Hoarder wanted to keep the sweater! I argued with him for no less than 20 minutes about that sweater. "I can fix this" he insisted. "No" I said, "this can NOT be fixed." I went on to say that everything below that point was covered in mouse shit and piss and wasn't worth keeping, especially since he hadn't seen or used it in all that time. I had a minor victory with that one - he acquiesced and I was allowed to haul it to the trash. After hours of work, we finally had his little computer room tidied and moved on to another room.

And it just got worse from there. His idea of cleaning up was simply to reshuffle the stuff around. Move this to the attic, move that to the basement. Keep everything. He really didn't seem to get it that it wasn't going to be good enough and he was going to lose his house. Eventually I was forced to give up and go home - where I immediately hopped into a scalding hot shower. The inspector came back out and the house was condemned. There was even an article about them in the local paper - it listed their names and described in detail the state of their house. Humiliating. The Hoarders next plan of action? Sell the house and start over elsewhere. /Facepalm. So they listed the house - something I didn't know about until I was over and a realtor suddenly came through with a very unimpressed prospective buyer. The realtor looked appalled. The Hoarder thought his house was worth 160k, but no one wanted it. In addition to the mountains of trash and mouse infestation, there were giant holes in the ceilings and walls. Worse still, the realty company was now refusing to show it and I don't blame them. He wound up calling the "We buy ugly houses" people, who offered him 60k and also said they'd provide a roll off dumpster for the crap he didn't take with him. They took the offer, found a house in their price range down in Albert Lea and moved there.

So now they were in a brand new house and everything was all nice and clean. After their humiliation in the local paper, they said they were determined to keep it clean and asked if I'd be willing to come down once a month to help them if they paid me. I needed the cash and I am unopposed to longish drives, so I said ok. I shoulda known better...

They really got their money's worth out of me. I busted my ass helping them get the furniture arranged, pictures on the walls, knickknacks on the shelves and boxes put away. When I was done it looked like a model home. They loaded up on cleaning supplies and I gave the place a good once over. Then they thanked me, gave me some cash and I went home.

When I went back a month later, I was shocked. I shouldn't have been, but I was. I was supposed to be helping them 'stay on top of it' but they clearly hadn't done a damn thing but generate more trash and acquire more stuff. There was wads of pet hair rolling through like tumbleweeds and a new pile of boxes in the center of the living room. I set to work and had the place looking nice again. I hauled out the trash, I flattened cardboard boxes (which they wouldn't let me throw away), I emptied the cats litter box and swept up the now petrified dog poo and pet hair. I scrubbed the bathroom. I started helping them organize the basement which is where the Hoarder had set up his new computer room and discovered that they had several boxes of dirty dishes down there. They had actually boxed up and moved dirty dishes! The cupboards upstairs were already full to capacity with more clean dishes than they needed, but for some reason they didn't want to get rid of these now moldy dishes that they packed and moved down there. It was beyond disgusting! I didn't complain, I just moved the crap around and piled it where they wanted it. I got my cash and drove back home.

And so it went. Every month I'd get down there and it would be worse than the last time I saw it. Even worse, I was running out of cleaning supplies and they hadn't bought more. I made it very clear that I couldn't clean much without cleaning supplies, but they did nothing. They weren't cleaning up after themselves, and they weren't providing me with the stuff I needed to do the job. After about five or six months of this, I went down there to clean and this time the Hoarder told me they didn't have the cash to pay me. They could cover my gas for the trip there and back, but they'd have to pay me the rest 'next month'. They didn't tell me any of this until after I was done cleaning of course. I was upset but I didn't make a big deal out of it. After all, he was an old friend and I know what it's like to come up short where money is concerned. But when I went down there the next month, the Hoarder told me they couldn't pay me at all - not even gas money! It seems his girlfriend had spent a couple hundred dollars on MAC cosmetics. She didn't even wear make-up, but she blew $200 on the stuff! I was upset. I don't piss gasoline and it cost me $20 at the time just to drive down there and back. Even so, I did my cleaning and the Hoarder said I could take away his cans - at least I could get a few bucks for them at the recyclers and they had a lot of them. So I drove home with my car crammed full of bags of aluminum cans. The trunk was full, as was the back seat and the passenger seat. It was sticky and nasty. At the recyclers I got $25 dollars for them - just enough to cover the gas and a little left over for some upholstery cleaner to get the soda out of my car seats.

When the next month rolled around, the Hoarder asked me if I was coming down. I asked if he was able to pay me. He said yes, so I went. Once again I busted my ass whipping their house back into shape, and when I was done he gave me $25. *sigh* I went home. Meanwhile my sweetie was pissed. I was spending money we didn't have on gas to go down there and clean their shit pile and coming home with just the gas money at best. He asked me why I was essentially working for free. I didn't have an answer for that other than 'He's my friend'. It just wasn't a good enough answer anymore. It was 110 miles one way, it was hard on the car and it was definitely hard on me. So I quit. When the next month came around and I didn't call or show up, the Hoarder called me and we had a little chat. I made it clear that I couldn't afford to keep making the trip down there - not even to visit. I had less cash per month to live on than they did. I also pointed out that they hadn't kept up their end of the deal - they were supposed to be cleaning up after themselves between my visits and they obviously weren't. He begged. Apparently his girlfriend was part of an internet forum for foodies and she had invited several of them to come to their house for an irl gathering. She had even offered to put them up at their place, but their house was of course a disaster. I said 'sorry, no.' I told him that if he wanted to visit, he could drive up here for a change. "There's a free Foghat concert at the Taste of Minnesota" I said. He said 'ok' and then never showed up. Me and my sweetie went to the show without him...his loss. I have no idea if they actually went ahead with their gathering or not. If they did, it had to have been horrible. For a few months after that, the Hoarder kept trying to get me to come back down and clean their house. I kept refusing. We had some vacancies in our building and doing the apartment turnovers paid better than cleaning their mess. 

The Taste of Minnesota happened every year on Harriet Island during the 4th of July. Over priced food, free music, carnival rides you couldn't pay me to go on and fireworks. I saw so many concerts at the Taste that I can't even list them all. For me Harriet Island is synonymous with music, I'd been seeing concerts there since I was a teenager. That summer in addition to Deep Purple, my sweetie and I also saw Bo Diddley. Both put on great shows, I'm still thrilled that I got a chance to see Bo play before he died. The man was legendary.
*edit* Oops...I just realized Deep Purple and Bo Diddley came here the following summer in 2005. Ah well, I'm getting old. My comment about Bo still stands.

As poor as we were, I still managed to squirrel away some cash for my sweetie and I to make our annual trip to the smallest state park in Minnesota. It was something we just couldn't do without. The quiet, the sound of the rapids, the sound and smell of the campfire, and at night the stars...just billions of them. We always referred to site 12 as 'home' and felt sad when it was time to leave and go back to the city. We wished we could live there forever.

Once we got back to town I discovered that my appeal had been denied. I could appeal it again though and this time I got some legal aid. I should have done that sooner because this time it was approved. I was told that in March 2005 I would start receiving social security, definitely a step up from welfare. It had been a rough year, but my sweetie was still sober and we still managed to have some fun despite our limited income. The rest of 2004 was just as lean as the first part, but there was finally a light at the end of the tunnel...

Summer in the City

It was August and the dog days of summer were here. We were in the middle of a heat wave - it had been 100 degrees every day for a week with no end in sight. The weather was hotter and steamier than normal, and our apartment was like a brick oven. The heat was inescapable and it was really taking its toll on my sweetie. We had fans blowing all over the house - 4 box fans, 2 ceiling fans and 2 portable fans - and it was all for naught. They seemed to be generating more heat than breeze, and what breeze they did offer was like sticking your head in an oven. I swear I could hear my brain cells sizzling.

We were sitting in the house dripping sweat and trying to come up with an idea to beat the heat. Suddenly my sweetie spoke up. "Huh?" I didn't hear him over the sound of my own brain frying. "I said lets go for a ride in the car, we can at least run the air conditioning and cool off" he repeated. "Ahhh" I replied. I had another idea though, something a little more long term. "Let's buy a pool instead" I said. "No argument from me" he said. So we hopped in the car and went off in search of a pool. At this point I would have settled for a child's wading pool... As luck would have it, the store we went to was having an end of summer sale and I found us a decent sized pool. It was one of those inflatable ring pools - 12 feet wide and 3 feet deep. We raced back home to set it up.

Upon our return, we discovered that neither of us had the lung power to inflate the ring and the bicycle pump we had wasn't cutting it either, it was exhausting trying to pump it up by hand - so I ran back to the store and bought a small electric pump. Meanwhile, my sweetie went to work getting the pool pump assembled and attached. I quickly got back with the air pump and after filling the ring we turned on the garden hose. Then we sat and watched and waited. An hour later, the water was barely a foot deep and I started wondering if we couldn't get the fire department out here with a bigger hose. Finally I couldn't wait another minute longer - ready or not, I was getting in that damned pool! I jumped in and immediately shrieked - OMFG!!! The water was arctic!!! I mean seriously cold - like members of the Polar Bear club would have dipped a toe in and said 'No freaking way'. One thing was certain though, I was no longer hot. I got back out as quickly as I had hopped in and stood by my sweetie, shivering. "Feel better?" he asked laughing at me. "I advise you to wait until the sun warms the water up a little" I said. "No problem" says he...

Neither of us had any idea how long it was going to take to fill that pool. At 1am it still wasn't full! At that point, we turned the hose off and decided we'd finish filling it the next day. In the morning after another hour and a half of running the hose, it was finally done! It was supposed to be over 100 degrees again and we decided to wait just a little bit for the water to warm up. By afternoon, the sun was high in the sky and we couldn't wait anymore. The pool thermometer said 88 degrees. I hopped in and immediately submerged - holy shit! It was still pretty brisk initially, but after sitting in the water a few minutes it was heaven. I wanted to live in it. My sweetie finally hopped in as well, but to him the water felt a lot colder than it actually was. He didn't have an ounce of fat left on him to protect him from the cold, so he didn't stay in long. I suggested an inflatable pool raft so he could dangle his legs in the water without freezing to death. So my sweetie ran off to the store in search of one. He returned a short while later with more inflatable pool crap than would actually fit in the pool and I made a crucial discovery about inflatable ring pools. Never, EVER(!) push down on the ring! I was trying to hop up onto my little raft while unaware I was too near the edge and accidentally pushed down on the ring. WHOOOSH!!!! Water started pouring out like Niagara Falls and I went right out of the pool, raft and all, hitting the ground hard. Ouch. Shit! Did anyone see that? If they did, they were managing to stifle their laughter. I pulled the ring back up, stopping the flow of water. No harm done, just a slightly bruised ego. I made sure to warn my sweetie against trying to board the raft too near the ring. I decided to forgo the rafts myself, with the slightly lower water level I could sit on the bottom of the pool and the water came to just under my chin.

It got the job done and when we went back into the house it felt about 20 degrees cooler in there. And that was how we got through the rest of the heat wave. As soon as we were feeling too warm, we'd go out and dunk ourselves in the pool a few times and cool off again. His mom thought we were geniuses.  Overall, it was the best money I ever spent - I just wished I'd thought of it sooner. A week or two later, the heat wave finally let up. Autumn was just around the corner.

Sometimes Salvation

2003 - I was still working security at the casino and doing well... that is I was doing well until another power shift guard made it to 3rd shift. Apparently he was upset with me because he was 'supposed' to be the next in line to leave power shift but I got out before him because of all the drama that had gone down. You'd think he would have been happy that he was finally out, but no... He was harboring a grudge and determined to make my life miserable because of it. Suddenly my work environment was hostile again. I was good at my job and my supervisors liked me, but grumpy guy was doing everything he could to try and make me look bad. One night I was assigned to relief duty - my job was to give the post guards their breaks. At the beginning of the shift I went around and asked all of them what time they wanted their lunch break and if the time they wanted was already taken, they had to choose a different one. That night, grumpy said he wanted 5am. I told him he would have to choose another time because someone else already had a 5am break. I told him 5:15 and 5:30 were still available. He grumbled about it and finally settled on 5:15.

So at 5am I was giving another guard their break when I received a call on the radio from a supervisor demanding to know my location. I told him where I was and he said to see him at post 4 when the guard returned to their post. At 5:15 I went over to post 4 (which was where grumpy guard was supposed to be - but he wasn't there) and the supervisor was angrily asking me why I was late to relieve grumpy guy. I explained that I wasn't late - I was right on time! He said that grumpy guy had told him his break was supposed to be at 5am. I showed him my notebook and told him 'no - he wanted 5am but it was already spoken for and he was told that his choices were 5:15 or 5:30, he chose 5:15 but was unhappy about it'. He had clearly lied to the supervisor about what time his break was. The supervisor was now angry at grumpy guy and said he would have a word with him about it. When grumpy guy returned to his post, he was clearly annoyed that his little plan had blown up in his face. I tapped my notebook and reminded him that he chose 5:15, don't try that again - then I walked away to relieve the next guard.

Things continued like this for a few more weeks, he would try to make me look bad one way or another and I did my best to deflect it. After a while though, I had enough of his shit. Even though I was good at my job and he had been discredited several times in his efforts to make me look bad, the supervisors seemed unwilling or unable to put a stop to it. Then an opening became available on 1st shift and I decided to apply for it. My 3rd shift supervisors were sad to see me go, they tried to talk me out of it - but it was him or me. 3rd shift just wasn't big enough for the both of us.

I started working 1st shift, and things were once again going well. I no longer had to deal with grumpy guy and the 1st shift guards seemed to like me. My mom and my stepdad were both on 1st shift in their departments too, and I was able to have lunch with them every so often. Things were going well at work and I was happy.

My home life was a different story. My sweetie was still getting drunk and I began to dread going home. I was never sure what I was going to find when I got there. I wasn't even sure home would be there, because my sweetie would often pass out with a cigarette lit. I kept thinking that one of these days he'd accidentally burn the building down while I was away. To make matters worse, he was spending a lot of time hanging out and drinking with former roommate number 1. His drinking escalated and so did our fighting. One evening he said he was going over to former roommate #1's place and I told him that if he was getting drunk he should just stay there - I didn't want to deal with him when he was drunk. The stress was killing me.

About 2am I got a phone call from him asking if I would give him a ride home. I could tell by his voice that he was wasted, and I said no. I told him he was going to have to sleep it off there and I hung up the phone. He called back and ranted at me belligerently - I hung up again. He called again and I didn't answer the phone, I just turned the ringer off. In the morning I had 20 voice mails. I wished I hadn't checked them, but I did. They were pretty ugly. He was ranting about how I knew he was a drunk when I met him and how dare I expect him to change now. Another message and he was he was still ranting, and trying (and failing) to slam the phone down. The third message he screamed BITCH into the phone at the top of his lungs. In the background I heard former roommate #1 tell him to call me a cunt and my sweetie obediently yelled CUNT! YOU'RE JUST A FUCKING CUNT! before hanging up again. And with that, former roommate #1 became my sworn enemy. Most of the other 'messages' were simply calling me a bitch (again) or cunt or just the sound of him hanging up the phone.

Sober, my sweetie was a leader. Drunk and he became a lemming. I wanted to locate and physically harm former roommate #1. I was also sinking fast into depression.

I saved those messages. When he finally came back home, I told him I couldn't deal with it anymore. He had to get the drinking under control or we were done. He looked very sad and tried to convince me that he was unable to control his temper when he was sober. He said he loved me but was afraid I wouldn't like him anymore if he went to treatment. *sigh* This was the fallout from vapid girl. Remember her? He went to treatment at her request and she cheated on him while he was there. I learned that this bitch had actually told him that she didn't like his personality since he went to treatment and that's why she cheated on him. It was all bullshit of course - she was simply trying to justify her own lack of morals. So I played his messages back to him on speaker phone. He looked completely shocked at first - he'd clearly never heard himself when he was drunk before. Then he looked sad. I said "What's the matter? You don't remember saying this shit?" He didn't. Message after message played. He said he'd heard enough. I said "No, I don't think you have" and played all of them. I gestured toward the phone and said "Oh yeah - that guy really loves me." By the end of them, he was actually crying. Now it was my turn to be shocked. I had only ever seen him cry once before, and that was at a funeral. He said he was sorry, he begged me to forgive him. I wanted to forgive him, but it was getting harder to do. I told him he had one more chance - just one. Screw up again and you're out. Don't call my bluff.

The stress of all this was starting to follow me to work. Then one day I fucked up - and I didn't even know it. I had said the wrong thing to a day shift supervisor. It was well known that she was 'on a diet' - she wasn't keeping it a secret or anything - she was always talking about being on a diet and counting calories. Once a month we got a cake to celebrate the birthdays in our department, and I saw the dieting supervisor peaking in the cake box in anticipation. I foolishly said to her "Don't do it! Resist the temptation!" I was just joking with her, but she dropped the box lid and shot me a look... She didn't know I was joking, or she didn't care - I had offended her.

The next thing I knew, I was being assigned to post duty - every single day. Before that, I had been a 'floor guard' - which I loved. Being on the floor meant I could keep moving, I took radio calls, did escorts, the time just flew by for me. Being on post, you stood by a door. No moving around. Time stood still. Dieting supervisor assigned the guards positions. It was killing me and she knew it. It also pissed me off. There were several guards who actually preferred being on post and she knew I preferred being on the floor. I knew I was being punished for my comment to her, but she insisted that it was standard procedure to rotate the guards. Bullshit. I had been there long enough at that point to know that it wasn't - and if it was, then why was I the only one being 'rotated' in this fashion?

My depression worsened and it was impossible to put on a happy face for my job. Then another supervisor (one of her buddies) started picking at me as well. Before long I was completely miserable and began to hate my job.

To make matters even worse, I came home one evening to find my sweetie passed out on the floor again. Dammit to fucking hell! This was the final straw for me. I woke him up, I screamed at him, and then I piled him into the car and dumped him off at the house of former roommate #2. I waited for him to go inside and then I went home. The next day I got a call from him - he was at his mom's house and wanted to know if he could come home. I was completely heartbroken by that point. I said "I'm sorry, no. I just don't think this is going to work out anymore - I think we should just go our separate ways." He was crying now and asking if he went to treatment, would I let him come home - and I said I no longer knew if I could do that. He'd been to rehab before but he always relapsed. I said if he was really serious about making it work, I'd think about it - but I had my doubts and I'd already given him more than his fair share of chances.

Later that day I got another call - this time it was his mom. She said he was quite a mess. I learned that former roommate #2 was unhappy about having to let him crash on his couch the night before and when he got up for work that morning he'd told my sweetie he was not welcome to hang out there all day. He'd piled him into the truck and dumped off at his mothers house at 6am, hung over and sick as a dog. His mom was even less happy than former roommate #2 about this turn of events. I told her I was sorry, but I couldn't let him stay with me anymore - I'd had enough. She said she spent the day convincing him that he couldn't stay with her and that rehab was his best option but he wanted assurance that he'd be able to come back home if he went. I said "We'll see."

So he went to rehab. And I went back to work. I'm pretty sure we were both feeling miserable at that point. About 2 weeks later, I got a phone call at work - it was my sweetie. He wanted to know if I could bring him some things from home - socks and underwear, a few of his t-shirts, portable cd player and some cd's. I said ok, I'd bring them after work.

When I got there he was waiting outside and he looked so happy to see me. He gave me a big hug and kiss, he thanked me for bringing him the stuff from home and for putting up with his shit for all those years. He also apologized and said he owed me at least 5 years of being sober. I hugged him back and said I wanted 10.

I visited him after work a few times and we went for walks together in a park nearby. It was around this time that I had my first real argument with his mom. It was her belief that I should also attend AA meetings. I disagreed - I didn't have an alcohol problem, I didn't even drink! She was very pushy about it though and said I should go just to be supportive. I told her I was sure I could find other ways to be supportive. She was quite miffed. During one of my visits, I told my sweetie about this and asked him if he thought I should attend the meetings. He thought it was silly. He pointed out that since I didn't have a drinking problem, there was no real reason for me to go if I didn't want to. He said he'd have a word with his mom and tell her to get off my back about it. He must have done it, because she dropped the subject after that.

My relationship with my sweetie was improving, but at work I was still miserable. The dieting supervisor and her buddy continued to assign me to post, and they were actively looking for reasons to haul me into the office and write me up. My shoes were too worn - verbal warning. I replaced them. I was a minute late coming back from break - written warning. I 'looked unhappy' while on post - 3 day suspension. I started looking for a job in a different department, but I was being blackballed. The only department human resources would let me transfer to was housekeeping. I'd rather smoke webbed feet than go back there. So I was fired.

My sweeties mom said to apply for unemployment again. I told her it was pointless - no one ever won an unemployment case from the casino. Not ever. I applied anyway, and it was denied. She said to appeal, and said she'd come with as my advocate. Having worked for the unemployment office, she knew the mediators and felt her presence would be in my favor. I tried to explain to her how the casino did things, that they wouldn't just be sending 1 or 2 supervisors to contest it. There would be several people there. While helping me to put together my case, she wanted to know the names of the supervisors involved and I rattled off a list. She became angry at me and said there can't possibly be that many people involved. I insisted there was. I knew that I was going to lose whether she came with or not. She was clueless as to how they operated and didn't believe me.

On the day of my appeal I had some small vindication. She was sitting next to me in the waiting area when they arrived - all 7 of them. 6 supervisors plus 1 person from human resources. She was shocked that they would send so many people just to fight my appeal... I had tried to warn her that this was how they worked. The only thing in my favor was that they were obviously surprised that I had someone with me and that made them nervous. She sat next to me taking copious 'notes' - useless information really, but they wanted to know who she was and what was she writing down. She replied that she was simply taking notes, she was my advocate and there for moral support which I clearly needed since they sent 7 people just to dispute my claim. She offered to let them see her 'notes' and they declined. From there on out though, it was a disaster. It was my word against theirs and they were blatantly lying about my work history. In the end, they won - but she did apologize to me for under estimating them.

By this point, my sweetie had completed his rehab and I allowed him to come home. I had to apply for welfare to make ends meet, and I started looking for a new job. It had all taken its toll on me though. I had a few interviews with no success. I kept looking, but then one day out of the blue I had a monster panic attack. I was sitting in my car in the parking lot of a prospective employer and I just could not bring myself to go inside. I got tunnel vision, the world went dark, I couldn't breathe. I remember I sat there just shaking...and then I decided to just go back home. As soon as it passed I did just that. I went home, crawled into my bed and just cried into my pillow until I fell asleep.

I told my sweeties mom about it and she suggested I see a therapist. I tried to find one, I called several -  but as soon as they would find out I was on welfare they were suddenly 'not accepting new patients'. Nice. Finally I got a referral to the county run facility. By this time I was suicidal and willing to see anyone.

I was assigned a therapist and went in to see her. We spoke for an hour and then she made another appointment for the following week. When I went in for that appointment, we spoke some more and then she told me that she was leaving the facility for a job in the public school system. She referred me to another therapist. I made an appointment and went in to see therapist #2. She was sympathetic, and offered some suggestions on dealing with my panic attacks. I saw her for about 3 weeks and then one day she said she thought this other therapist could help me better. Enter therapist #3. By now I was becoming frustrated. Every time I was given a 'new' therapist, I had to start over from square one retelling my story of how I came to be there because none of them had written any of it down. Therapist #3 was of the opinion that my sweetie was the cause of all my problems and advised me to dump him. I refused. I told her that he had just completed rehab and that I wanted to give him a chance to make it work. I was unwilling to dump him now just when things were getting better between us.

In addition to the therapists, I was also seeing a psychiatrist and his nurse - mostly the nurse. It was their job to prescribe antidepressants, etc.. Every week, I'd see the therapist and then I'd have to wait around to see the psychiatric nurse who'd ask a few questions and prescribe some drugs, then the psychiatrist himself would come in and ask a few more questions and sign the script. I was prescribed so much shit, I can't even remember all of them anymore. I quickly learned that I have a low tolerance for antidepressants. The side effects were killing me. One drug made me so jittery I couldn't sleep, another left me feeling so disconnected that the house could have been on fire and I wouldn't have cared. Another made me physically sick and yet another made me sleep nonstop round the clock. The psychiatrist was growing annoyed that none of the drugs he prescribed were helping me and started suggesting stronger stuff. He suggested lithium but I shot that idea down because I was aware that it required regular blood tests and I'm terrified of needles. When he suggested electroconvulsive therapy, I said absolutely not! Then he found out that I was applying for disability and acted offended. I explained that my case worker had suggested it because it could take a while to find the right combination of drugs to help me and I wasn't getting enough money to pay my bills on welfare. I was falling behind on all of them - he didn't care. He acted like he would be personally penalized if I received disability.  

Meanwhile therapist #3 had given up on me. I wasn't willing to take her advice and dump my sweetie so she said she couldn't help me and suggested I go to group therapy instead. In my opinion it was one thing to speak with someone one on one - it was another to have to talk about my problems with a whole group of strangers. I wasn't interested and stopped going to that facility altogether. In my opinion, they failed me.

Throughout all of this, my sweetie was taking care of me. True to his word, he was staying sober but he was growing concerned about the side effects of the drugs I was prescribed. I lost months of my life to the side effects of those drugs. When I spent a whole week doing nothing but sleeping, he asked me to stop taking them. No problem sweetie...they weren't helping anyway.

One day I realized that it had been months since we fought about anything. We remembered that we loved each other and we began to enjoy spending time together again. He was my best friend and ally. He was the only antidepressant I really needed, as long as I had him I knew things would work out ok.

Remember Tomorrow

July was a busy month for us. My sweetie was still feeling good...
For the 4th of July we all went up north to visit friends in Pine City who were having a party. We try to make it every year. They deep fried a turkey and put together a pretty tasty meal with all the fixings for all of us, and later we had a good time sitting around the bonfire chatting with everyone. Usually on the ride home we are able to catch all the fireworks from the small towns between here and there while driving down the freeway if we leave at just the right time, but this year we didn't leave on time to catch them. We were having too good a time hanging out with our friends and missed most of them. No biggie - our neighbors always seem to have the good aerial stuff from out of state and they buy a lot of them. We just watched theirs when we got home.

Back at home, we continued to enjoy the flowers and bird watching out on the deck. We got a big patio umbrella and set it up on the deck so we'd have more shade and be able to spend more time out there during the day. At night it was our favorite place to hang out, it was cool and quiet - we'd sit out there watching the stars and I'd point out the satellites in the sky. One time we spotted the space station flying over. It was our alone time when we'd just relax and unwind.

During the day we worked on our yard and he helped me with a planter I was building out of old tires and concrete. I didn't want him to over do it, but he wanted to help build it and I was glad he was there because I had never worked with concrete before; he knew how to mix it and what consistency it should have. I hired the son of another friend to do the actual mixing. He and my friends (the dungeon master and his lady) joined us in applying the concrete and we all had fun. It reminded me of playing in the mud as a kid.

In the middle of the month, my sweetie had another scan and we kept our fingers crossed, hoping for good news. A few days later we were back in the doctors office to get the results and I knew as soon as the doctor came in that the news was bad. He told us that although the tumor in his right lung had continued to shrink, the cancer had spread to his left lung and his liver. We asked if this meant more radiation and chemo, and the doctor said no. He said my sweetie had already had the max allowed radiation on his chest and discouraged the chemo. He said that the chemo they'd have to use this time was very strong and most people didn't tolerate it well, he said it would leave my sweetie in a severely weakened state that he wouldn't bounce back from easily. My sweetie tried to stay optimistic and said that since he was still feeling good he saw no reason to rock the boat. The doctor said he'd schedule another appointment for October and we left feeling like we'd both been punched in the gut.

My sweetie refused to let the bad news get him down and continued on as though everything was fine. I'm pretty sure that was mostly for my benefit. He was still taking taking the same dosage of pain meds twice a day and they seemed to be working for him at that time.

Shortly afterward, he accompanied me on another picture taking excursion. The Red Bull Flutag was in town and we went out to try and get some photos of it. I wound up not getting any pictures at all. We had a pretty good spot, but I saw a better one and when we tried to get there we got caught in massive amounts of traffic. By the time we got to the new spot there was no place to park so we left to go back to the old spot and by then those spots had filled up too. Ahh well. Maybe another time then. It was a miserably hot day and I would have been willing to just skip it and stay home, but he never complained and enjoyed the excuse to spend time outside.

He also hopped the Amtrak for Chicago with his buddy former roommate #2 to see Iron Maiden in concert. Chicago was as close as the tour was going to come. They had a good time and enjoyed the show, but I missed him terribly and was overjoyed when he returned. The Amtrak goes right past our house and I hung out near the track waiting for the train to go by and then raced it up to the station after it did. I won. When we got back home I made him something to eat and looked at the pictures he took on his phone in Chicago while he told me about the concert, the hotel, the people. He loved going to concerts, I'm glad he was able to go.

By the end of the month we were having a full on heat wave here and spending our time hiding from the sun, sitting inside with every fan we had blowing at high speed.

Best of you

2002 - As the year started, I was still collecting unemployment and it was due to run out by the end of the month. I still hadn't found a new job - normally I could pick up a new job without really trying but this was the worst job market I'd ever dealt with. I had applied out at the casino - I had worked there several years earlier and my mom was (and to this day still is) working there, but I had not heard back from them. Since my mom was a shift supervisor in the housekeeping department, I asked her to put in a good word for me. I needed to be employed again before my unemployment benefits ran out.

Further complicating matters was my sweetie. He had resumed his binge drinking and it was causing all kinds of havoc in my life. Worse yet, it was putting my building caretaker gig in jeopardy and that was the only thing keeping us afloat at the time. I suggested that maybe I was too hard for him to live with since he needed to get trashed so frequently, maybe he'd be happier living someplace else. For his part, he insisted that I wasn't the problem but he agreed to move in with a few friends of his and give me a break from his drinking. We still talked on the phone daily, and I visited him at his new place a few times a week.

I also spoke to his mother on the phone. I had hoped that she might side with me on this and help him get his act together. And while she did technically side with me on the drinking issue, she did nothing at all to discourage it. Quite the opposite in fact although I'm certain she would disagree. Most years for Christmas, she gave him Guinness beer paraphernalia of some kind - key chains, stickers, t-shirts, post cards, etc.. If it had the Guinness logo on it, she bought it and gifted it to him. Anyway, that year for Christmas she had given him more Guinness crap and his sister had given him a couple of Christmas tree ornaments that were little mugs of beer and I had finally had enough. During one of our phone conversations I mentioned to her that it seemed very contradictory to be wringing her hands over his drinking one minute and then turn around and gift him with beer related paraphernalia the next. I told her (and his sister) I felt like she was sending mixed messages and it wasn't helping the situation at all. Her answer? She didn't see it that way at all! Their family ancestry was Irish, she'd been to Ireland and the Guinness logo is everywhere over there. She said it was part of their cultural heritage and didn't see a problem with it. Inwardly I fumed. Looking back at our relationship over the years, I now wonder if she wasn't deliberately trying to stir up trouble between us. I had a similar conversation with his sister, and got a completely different response. His sister paused for a moment and then said 'Ya know, I hadn't thought of it that way - but you're right!' and to her credit she never gave him another beer/alcohol related gift ever again. Talking to his mom began to infuriate me though. She would 'commiserate' saying 'Oh he's so much nicer when he's not drunk, isn't he?' and then sigh and say 'Oh well, what can we do? He's been to treatment several times - it just never sticks.' My thoughts? KEEP FUCKING TRYING!!

At this point, I had only met his dad once. He didn't seem to be such a bad guy when I met him, but according to my sweetie he was quite the hard ass while my sweetie was growing up. I knew he'd side with me, but my sweetie would not be receptive to anything he had to say on the matter. No help there. And his aunt was a huge enabler - I had once told her he was doing pretty well at cutting back on his drinking and she said 'that's good!' and gave him a ride to the liquor store. This was the same woman who came to visit him when he got out of treatment the last time and brought a case of beer with her. Thanks for that you dumb bitch...

So now my sweetie was living with some of his drinking buddies and I was still looking for a new job. My mom had been talking me up to her boss and she must have said some really good things because suddenly out of the blue I got called in for an interview. She said he wanted to hire me and if I was anything like her, he wanted to make me a supervisor as well! I was stoked! No way was I going to blow this - I started my new job and was determined to be a model employee. Unfortunately my ambition was noticed by one of my new co-workers. She wanted to be promoted to the supervisor job and she felt she deserved it more than me because she had been there longer. I knew from talking to my mom that she wasn't even in the running - she had a bad attitude and had been written up for it several times in the past. Yet for some insane reason they made her my 'mentor'. It was her job to train me and since she already knew of my ambitions, she decided to train me badly. She gave me the wrong chemicals to use, and everything she showed me how to do - she made sure to show me the wrong way to do it. If I asked any questions at all, she looked at me like I was an idiot. This blew up in her face of course. When asked why I was using this chemical or that tool by the higher ups, I would simply reply that this is what 'bitchy co-worker' had instructed me to use. For her part she tried denying it and saying I was a liar - she showed me 'the right way' and I was just blowing her off and trying to make her look bad. I insisted that I was not a liar and since she had been disciplined on the job so many times before, they believed me. They assigned someone else to train me and there were no more problems. In fact, one morning I even heard my new mentor telling the big boss that things were going well - I was an awesome worker, I learned quick and did the job well.

Flash forward a few months and the big boss stopped me in the hall one night. He had been watching me and was impressed with my work ethic, there was a supervisor position coming available and he wanted me to apply for it! I immediately went and filled out the application. I would have to interview in front of a panel of 2 shift supervisors and the department supervisor. My mom would normally have been included in that group but since I was a relative she wasn't allowed this time. When the interview came around, I went in and did my best. I sat up straight, I answered all their questions the best I could. I had hoped that my past performance would also count in my favor. But when the decision was in, I learned I wasn't going to get the job. One shift supervisor liked me and voted yes, but the other supervisor and the department supervisor said 'no'. That's when I learned that the department supervisor didn't like my mom and was probably taking it out on me. The big boss liked my mom very much and for some reason that annoyed the department supervisor. She made up some bullshit excuse and said she didn't think I was ready for the position. The big boss called me into his office and said he really, really wanted to promote me but couldn't unless all 3 agreed. Since the department supervisor said I wasn't 'ready' he suggested I attend some of the management seminars over at human resources. They had a bunch of them - teamwork building, communication skills building, sensitivity training, emergency training, etc.. I went to every single one of them that they offered, and in the mean time I continued to get good marks on my performance reviews and even earned some commendation certificates for going above and beyond the call on my job. My mom and several of the other supervisors took me under their wings and coached me on what I should say if they asked me this or that question for next time I got a chance to interview. I could not have been more ready.

The guy who got the last opening I interviewed for was hired from outside and I was always catching him sleeping on the job. Seriously. Every night I'd find him napping somewhere. I just kept my mouth shut and did my job. It's a casino, there's cameras pretty much everywhere - I figured he'd get caught soon enough without my help. The next position to come available was because one of the supervisors was transferring to a different department and big boss told me he expected me to reapply. I went in to the second interview feeling more confident than I was for the first one. I was certain I had this in the bag. I was wrong. This time both of the shift supervisors voted yes, but again the department supervisor voted no. The big boss called me into his office and delivered the bad news. He also expressed confusion as to why the department supervisor had voted no again. I pointed out that I had taken all the available course he suggested and that the other 2 interviewers thought I would be good for the job. I also pointed out that my performance records were good and I had received commendations for my work so far... maybe the department supervisor was harboring some sort of personal grudge against me? He refused to believe that could be the problem and advised me to keep applying and interviewing. I'd had enough though - it was painfully clear to me that the department supervisor was not going to let me have the job no matter what I said or did - and big boss was never going to overrule her decision. So I applied for a job in a different department - security.

When I went in for the security interview, I was offered 2 options. I could take a regular security gig OR I could have a job on what they called the power shift. The interviewer really sold the power shift. She said it paid more money, and you were off as soon as the job was done for the day. She said they started at 3am and usually finished by 9am - but you get paid for 8 hours a day whether you work 6 hours or 10. Weird hours don't bother me and more money is always good, so I went with the power shift job. I really wish I hadn't.

While all this was happening, my sweetie had to move out of the place he was staying at and I reluctantly let him move back in. The owner of the house they were renting had decided to sell it so they had to leave - an empty house is easier to sell.

The power shift job was to follow the hard count crew around and watch them empty the money from the machines. It was the most mind numbing job I've ever had. Worse yet was the guy that was assigned to 'mentor' me. I was growing to hate that word. He made my first mentor, the bitchy co-worker, look like Miss Congeniality. So you might be thinking, "what training could you possibly need if your job is watching other people?" and that's a valid question. I'll just say cash collection at a casino is a really big fucking deal.

Every movement is watched by the security cameras. You can't move the cart or the crew without alerting the people monitoring the cameras via the radio, and when you do notify them that you're moving - you move at breakneck speed. So you have a few guards moving the locked cart rapidly to the section you're going to work on and in tow are half a dozen hard count guys followed closely by another half dozen guards carrying plastic chains. Yes. Plastic chains.

You arrive at the section you're going to empty and pray that no one is playing those machines. Those prayers are unanswered because there's always someone playing those machines. Alert the camera guys you've arrived at your destination. Now you have to announce loudly to everyone that you've come to empty the machines and they need to step away for a moment while we do that and then they can resume playing once we've finished. And they're always pissed off because they're certain, CERTAIN beyond a shadow of a doubt that if you empty the machine it won't hit the jackpot and they cuss you out for messing with their game. (Note: slot machines don't work like that kids. It's a fucking computer. Emptying the cash does not reset it and if you win "big" you always get payed off by a slot attendant - not $2000 in nickles. Get it? Now get the fuck out off the way of the poor slob whose job it is to empty this thing!) Once you get the players off the machines you must now rope off the area - that's where the chains come in. The hard count guys work like a NASCAR pit crew: a few of them quickly pull out all the chairs and the guards with the chains use them as posts to rope off the area. While all this has been happening the guards have opened the locked cart and another hard count guy runs around unlocking the cash boxes on the machines. Other hard count guys grab empty cash boxes of the cart and put one on each machine while a few more start pulling the full ones and put them on the cart. Then the guys who put out the empties plug them into the machines and they all get locked back up. Chains are lifted, chairs are replaced and the cart is locked. Call the camera guys, tell them you're moving (about 3 rows down), rinse and repeat.

The guy mentoring me was supposed to be teaching me what section was where and how far down to run the chains, where we're going next... and just like the bitchy coworker I dealt with in housekeeping, he acted like I was an idiot if I spoke at all. And I mean this was right out of the gate. I had just been introduced to him and all I said was 'hello' and he looked at me like I just kicked a puppy. Up on the casino floor he was a hundred times worse - he yelled at me because I didn't know the floor layout (Hey moron, I didn't work on the casino floor before and it's YOUR JOB to teach me!), he threw the chains at me and publicly berated me. The supervisor was his buddy and did nothing about it. He was just as nasty to me as my 'mentor'. I'm not fucking stupid, I learn new shit pretty quickly for the most part - but not when I'm being barked at or having shit flung at me! I also learned that there were a few things the interviewer hadn't told me before I took the job. Like we only got one break per day (whether you worked 6 hours or 10) and it was 4 hours into the shift. You also had to get someone to come and take your post if you needed to use the bathroom but thanks to my asshole mentor and supervisors nasty attitudes it was like pulling teeth to get a 'regular' guard to come relieve you. Apparently in the past, other power shift guards had simply walked off the job which left the poor relief guard stranded there until the shift was over. Power shift had a hard time keeping officers...I can't imagine why...

I tolerated this the best I could while I was at work, but I would sob in my car all the way home. I needed this fucking job - needed it! - I had to suck it up and deal with it somehow. My sweetie would try to console me, but it didn't change the fact that I had to go back there every night. I wasn't getting any help within the department - I had complained about the attitudes of my supervisor and my mentor to the higher-ups and got nowhere. There was practically a revolving door on this crew and they were refusing to see that the problem just might be the hostility from certain crew members. I asked to be moved to a regular security job and was told no. They said I had to wait 6 months before I could transfer. I was screwed.

Then one day, something slightly miraculous happened. We were up on the floor and my bitchy mentor was just being himself - he barked at me and flung the chains at me, hitting me in the face with them. And he did it in view of several customers who where aghast at what they saw. I didn't know it at the time, but a few of them went and filed formal complaints with the casino on my behalf about what they'd seen. Despite having just been hit in the face I tried to keep it together, but by that time I was ready to just quit this miserable job and let the chips fall where they may. My eyes were tearing and I couldn't stop them. I tried really hard to hide the fact that I was crying and I failed miserably. One of the regular security supervisors saw this and alerted the day shift administrator who promptly came and took me off the floor. In the office I sat and sobbed my way through the whole story and told the admin that I was simply going to quit if I wasn't transferred immediately - I was unwilling to tolerate this abuse even one minute longer. To my surprise, he transferred me that very day! He told me to go take a break and report to the day shift supervisor when I was done. Unfortunately he neglected to inform the power shift supervisor of this development. The day shift supervisor assigned me to a repair technician - all I had to do was follow him around and radio our location to the camera guys. While I was following him around, suddenly here's the power shift supervisor and he's furious. He immediately lit into me right there on the casino floor - yelling and ranting at me in front of customers and employees alike. I tried calmly explaining that I was being transferred and no longer under his supervision - he didn't want to hear it. He just kept yelling and told me 'my ass better be back on that cart in 5 minutes' and stormed off. The tech was finished with his work and didn't need a guard anymore, so I was dismissed. As I said earlier, I was unwilling to do the power shift any longer and if I had to go back there I was going to walk. I looked for the admin I spoke to, but couldn't find him - so I left, feeling defeated.

As it turns out, the tech that witnessed that last verbal assault went directly to human resources and filed a complaint too and I was quickly switched to the night shift - regular security. What a difference! As much as I hated the power shift - I loved the regular security detail! I have no idea if either of the jerks got in any kind of trouble, but quite frankly I didn't care as long as I didn't have to work with them anymore. I was often assigned floor detail and that meant I got to wander freely patrolling the halls and taking radio calls. I kept so busy that the shift would just fly by...it was heaven for me.

At home, my mood was better too. My sweetie was for the most part behaving himself - he was still drinking, but he hadn't gone off on a binge for over a month. I could deal with it as long as he wasn't being an out of control wreck, and we fought with each other less. I liked my job and started to feel like things might work out ok after all...