The year 2000. Somehow I hadn't been fired or quit, I was still working at the nuclear pharmacy. I'd managed to keep a low profile at work and avoided my boss as much as possible. I was making decent money at this job and couldn't afford to just split and look for a new one, I was determined to tough it out. It was getting harder and harder to do though.
I'd try to get my route together and get out on the road as quickly as I possibly could. As soon as I was on the road I was free. All I really had to do was drive the truck and listen to the radio. My first stop was in Shakopee, then on to Mankato, Austin and Albert Lea. Each stop was at least an hour from the next. At each one I'd lug my cases into the hospitals' nuclear medicine department, drop off the order, pick up the empty cases and leave. Easy Peasy. Or at least it should have been.
I ran into problems with some of the people working in the hospital labs. There were a few who were just bubbly little rays of sunshine every morning and couldn't deal with people who weren't. I'd arrive, say good morning to anyone I had to deal with, drop off the cases and try to get my empties and leave - quickly. Unfortunately my polite 'good morning' wasn't sunshiny enough for them and they'd complain to my boss. Seriously. One of my stops actually complained because I failed to say hello back to them. I remember sitting in my evil boss lady's office listening incredulously while she gave me a stern talking too about it. Are you kidding me?! I'm actually getting a verbal warning because I didn't say hello?! I explained to the boss that I simply hadn't heard them - nope, not good enough. She continued on, telling me that I was the face of the company when I was on the road and I should go out of my way to be pleasant when dealing with our clients. When she finished, I told her I'd do better and slunk out of her office feeling agitated. From then on I went out of my way to be super friendly to the sunshiny people when I encountered them. They then started to complain that I was being too cheerful. Fuck my life. I hate people.
The only client my evil boss ever went toe to toe with on my behalf was the Austin stop. For some reason the doctor there wanted to schedule her patients as early in the morning as she could, and she wanted her nuclear medicine delivered by 7am. Impossible. Nuclear medicine has a decay rate, it gets made every day specifically for the patient who will receive it based on their weight and what time their appointment is. Because of the time it took to make the doses and the distance between the lab and the hospitals, it was impossible to get it there before 7:30. If I fractured the traffic laws I could get it there by 7:15am at the very earliest - but I'm responsible for my own speeding tickets. The boss told her time and again that we could not guarantee it before 7:30 - but every time I got to her stop she was sitting there waiting impatiently and scowling at me even though I was technically on time. Guh. Whatever. If there was ever anyone on my route that I could cuss out and probably get away with it, it was her.
During this time my sweetie landed a job at a local bakery. His job was to deliver donuts to gas stations and company cafeterias, etc.. One morning we discovered purely by accident that our two routes crossed each other. I was driving south on 169 and as I was passing a delivery van I looked over and noticed it was my sweetie driving it. He stopped at a gas station for a delivery and I pulled in behind him. We were surprised to see each other. We both began looking forward to running into each other every morning even though it was just long enough to grab a cup of coffee and a quick kiss. Then it was back to the grindstone.
If I thought my route problems were bad, they were nothing compared to his. His boss apparently had more clients than he had drivers and vehicles to handle - my sweetie had to make upwards of 50 stops every day, and like me he was expected to have his stuff delivered by a certain time. Looking at his route sheet I could see that he was being expected to do the impossible. It was just an insane amount of delivery stops. To make matters worse, the donuts were almost never ready on time - this had him leaving 'late' on his route more often than not. It wasn't his fault but his boss was still unsympathetic. There was also a problem with his paychecks - the boss was constantly late with his deposits so they kept bouncing and the check cashing places wouldn't touch them. The only place that cashed them without batting an eye was the neighborhood bar up the street from the bakery.
And that caused another fight between us. I knew he was having trouble cashing his checks but I didn't like the idea of him cashing them at the bar - it was just another excuse for him to get drunk and I had been nagging him without mercy about the amount of drinking he was doing. By this time I was losing my mind over it and wound up having an embarrassing scene at that neighborhood bar. The bartender tried to claim that my sweetie only came in to cash his check and ordered coffee when he did. Yeah right. I knew my sweetie well enough to know this guy was lying through his teeth. I had an epic conniption fit right then and there. I yelled at the bartender, I yelled at my sweetie - fortunately we were the only ones in the bar at the time, but it was pretty damn embarrassing. (Sorry bartender.) I think in the back of my mind I was hoping it was embarrassing enough that my sweetie wouldn't be welcome there anymore. Not even. I'm guessing the bartender had seen much worse in his time.
The stress of the impossible route and the check cashing fiasco was too much for my sweetie and he quit the bakery gig. I was almost relieved - more stress meant more alcohol and we definitely didn't need that. Since he didn't have a job to go to, he was helping me with my caretaker job. In the summer he mowed the grass and in the winter he shoveled snow. He also started helping out with the household chores - laundry, dishes, cooking dinner. It was nice to have some help and he seemed to be buying less beer, which initially seemed like a good thing. Little did I know...
My mom needed to go back down to Oklahoma to handle some personal business and asked me if I'd come with to keep her company on the ride. I was nervous about leaving my sweetie unmonitored for a few days but I didn't want to turn my mom down, I said 'sure!' and we left. We stayed at my brothers house and after a day of sightseeing I called home to check on things. Oh dear. I could tell he was drunk again as soon as he answered the phone. The stereo was way too loud and he was sounding pretty sloppy. When I confronted him about it he became belligerent. "You didn't really think I wasn't going to drink while you were gone, did you?" Probably not, but I didn't think he was going to use it as an excuse to go on a bender - which is what he obviously did. I couldn't enjoy the rest of the trip, I was too worried about what was going on at home. On the return trip my mom let me drive for a while and drive I did. Like a bat out of hell.
When we finally got back home my mom helped me carry my stuff inside and I wished she hadn't. I could hear my stereo blasting as soon as we got in the building and when I walked into my apartment I found my sweetie passed out on the living room floor, an empty vodka bottle laying nearby. There was a few more empties on the counter and I saw another bottle in the trash. Fuuuuuuuu..... I quickly stepped over him and shut down the stereo, and then apologized to my mom and sent her on her way.
After she left I walked over and gave him a swift kick in the ass. I wasn't proud of that then and I'm not proud of it now. I wanted him up and out of my apartment. We had yet another fight, I piled him into my car and dumped him off at the house of his buddy - formerly roomie #2. Back at home I started tossing the empties in the trash and discovered his stash of booze in one of the dresser drawers. I was pissed off. He had started drinking vodka to supplement his beer drinking. This way he could drink less beer in front of me and still maintain the level of alcohol he wanted in his system with me being none the wiser. It worked too - he was actually able to fool me for a little while, but those days were now over. Now that I knew what he was doing, I'd be on a constant lookout for his hidden stashes and dump them when I found them. And dump them I did. It was an exercise in futility - as fast as I got rid of it, he'd get more.
Despite all this, I still loved him and we still had a good time together much more often than not. We really did enjoy each others company and when I'd see something of interest along my delivery route, I'd tell him about it and we'd both go check it out on the weekends. We visited roadside railroad museums and still went fishing and camping together. He knew I enjoyed taking pictures so he bought me a new camera and accompanied me on my picture taking excursions. I didn't have to ask him - he just wanted to come with.
Through all of this, I was trying and failing to get my credit cards paid off. The interest was destroying me and I couldn't make a big enough payment to knock down the principal. I tried using a financial planner and arranging payments with the credit card companies - no good. The phone was ringing off the hook daily. The creditors calling me didn't give a shit that I had made payment arrangements through the financial planner - I was past due and they wanted their money now. I gave them the planners number and told them to discuss it with them. No dice. I complained to the planner, who said I should be able to make the payments they arranged without difficulty. Except for one thing: While dividing my check among the creditors they had completely neglected to allot me any money for gas, groceries, soap, etc.. I can't keep going to work without gas in my car, food in my belly and wearing dirty clothes - my evil boss lady would never stand for it. After bringing that to their attention they finally came to the conclusion that I was in a situation I couldn't dig out of and suggested a bankruptcy lawyer. I decided they were right and I filed for bankruptcy. I felt like such a loser, but at least the phone stopped ringing.
As 2000 came to a close, my mom quit the job at the pharmacy. The office politics were driving her nuts and she was over qualified for the job anyway. She took a supervisory position at the casino. I was bummed - her presence in the lab was keeping the evil boss lady in check, and now that she was gone I had nothing to shield me. Boss lady knew it too and immediately started looking for reasons to rake me over the coals again. All I could do was grit my teeth and ride it out.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Monday, March 21, 2011
I feel good
April 2010, my sweetie completed his round of chemo and radiation and he was feeling good. During the last couple of weeks of treatment he was tired a lot, and the burn from the radiation got pretty bad but his appetite was better than it had been in almost a year and his mood had improved greatly.
The nutritionist had said to keep his weight up - any calories were good at this point, and I was shoe-horning them in whenever and where ever I could. I made many middle of the night trips to the local fast food restaurants - if he wanted White Castles at 3am I'd hop in the car and drive across town to get them. I was just happy to see him eating again.
Toward the end of the month his fatigue was going away and he was feeling more energetic. He took advantage of this and made the rounds visiting his friends and family. He got a new motorcycle that was lighter and easier for him to handle, and as soon as the roads were dry enough he made sure to go for a ride at least once a day as well.
He was feeling so good that he began to over do it. Every year I had a container garden on our back deck and he would help me set it up, getting the pots down from the shelves in the garage and running them up the stairs. He liked to sit out there in the morning, having coffee, watching the birds and listening to the trains. I wanted him to take it easy but as long as he was feeling good he wanted to act like nothing was wrong whatsoever. He wanted to feel normal. He wanted to do laundry, he wanted to barbecue, he wanted to dig in the dirt...so I let him. We seemed to have a mutual unspoken agreement that as long as he was feeling good, we'd live in denial for a while.
So we went shopping together at the nursery to pick out the plants for the season and get dirt for the pots. We did a lot of shopping in 2010 really...if something struck his fancy, we bought it. I saw no reason to deny him any creature comforts he wanted and he saw no reason to deny me mine. I think we both just wanted the other to feel better, price tags be damned. While we were out shopping he upgraded our deck chairs and we got a patio umbrella to give us a little more shade in the afternoons.
The doctors had changed his prescriptions - instead of taking Vicodin as needed, he was now taking Oxycontin twice a day and it seemed to be managing his pain very well. I remember sitting with him on the deck last spring and being almost convinced that it had all been a bad dream.
He couldn't be dying - he looked healthier and happier than I'd seen him in ages.
The nutritionist had said to keep his weight up - any calories were good at this point, and I was shoe-horning them in whenever and where ever I could. I made many middle of the night trips to the local fast food restaurants - if he wanted White Castles at 3am I'd hop in the car and drive across town to get them. I was just happy to see him eating again.
Toward the end of the month his fatigue was going away and he was feeling more energetic. He took advantage of this and made the rounds visiting his friends and family. He got a new motorcycle that was lighter and easier for him to handle, and as soon as the roads were dry enough he made sure to go for a ride at least once a day as well.
He was feeling so good that he began to over do it. Every year I had a container garden on our back deck and he would help me set it up, getting the pots down from the shelves in the garage and running them up the stairs. He liked to sit out there in the morning, having coffee, watching the birds and listening to the trains. I wanted him to take it easy but as long as he was feeling good he wanted to act like nothing was wrong whatsoever. He wanted to feel normal. He wanted to do laundry, he wanted to barbecue, he wanted to dig in the dirt...so I let him. We seemed to have a mutual unspoken agreement that as long as he was feeling good, we'd live in denial for a while.
So we went shopping together at the nursery to pick out the plants for the season and get dirt for the pots. We did a lot of shopping in 2010 really...if something struck his fancy, we bought it. I saw no reason to deny him any creature comforts he wanted and he saw no reason to deny me mine. I think we both just wanted the other to feel better, price tags be damned. While we were out shopping he upgraded our deck chairs and we got a patio umbrella to give us a little more shade in the afternoons.
The doctors had changed his prescriptions - instead of taking Vicodin as needed, he was now taking Oxycontin twice a day and it seemed to be managing his pain very well. I remember sitting with him on the deck last spring and being almost convinced that it had all been a bad dream.
He couldn't be dying - he looked healthier and happier than I'd seen him in ages.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Drive
In 1999 I quit my job as a shipping clerk. During the previous summer and early fall there had been an extreme amount of overtime - 12 hours a day, 5 days a week. Come winter it had been a different story altogether. It was a dry winter and our business was down due to the lack of snow, without it our winter inventory wasn't selling. I was down to 20 hours a week on average and had to max out all my credit cards to make ends meet. I started searching the employment ads and found a new job as a delivery driver in a nuclear medicine lab. The hours were weird (2am til 10am) but stable and it paid a lot better. This was good because I had acquired a mountain of credit card debt.
My sweetie's drinking was completely epic by this point. He had lost his job and unable to pay his rent, he was evicted from his apartment. I let him move into mine. I met his mom for the first time and was both awestruck and completely intimidated by her. I have no idea what she thought of me at the time...
Over the course of the year I discovered just how bad his alcoholism had gotten. Because his behavior was so erratic and I felt a constant need to keep track of him, I was in a perpetual state of sleep deprivation. He was like Jekyll and Hyde. Sober, he was sweet and considerate - drunk and he turned into a snarling monster, spewing vitriol at anyone unfortunate enough to get in his way. He frequently borrowed stuff and returned it broken. He would binge drink and after he passed out, he soiled the bed. I spent much of my time off washing the bedding, trying to replace broken items and doing damage control with our management company about the volume of the music/other noise coming from my apartment along with doing my duties as building caretaker.
I feel like I was as much at fault for my sweetie's drinking as he was. There were too many times over the year when I bought his beer just to avoid the fight I knew would come if he was forced to go without. Enabling I guess they call it. At the time, I just called it keeping the peace. Not that things were any more peaceful when he had his beer mind you. He could easily drink a 12 pack a day like it was nothing and I was eventually able to accurately gauge his mood by counting how many cans he'd gone through. 3-6 cans and he's happy, social and playing his guitar. 7-9 cans and he became moody and argumentative. 10-12 cans and he would bitch at me about the crap he endured as a young boy living with his mom - "Ya know what my mom had on the back of the toilet when I was a kid?! A FUCKING PENIS GUILLOTINE!!! And she thought it was FUNNY!" *sigh* Christ. What could she have possibly been thinking with that thing?! (Seriously. If you're reading this, have a son and you own one of these things, go smash it with a hammer and throw it in the trash. You'll be doing your boy and his future girlfriend(s) a solid. Do it now. I'll wait...)
Sleep deprivation plus a driving job is a recipe for disaster. I was trying to make up for it by driving like a bat out of hell to get my deliveries done early and then I would grab a nap for an hour at a rest area. I also drank ridiculous amounts of coffee. None of this was working well unfortunately. I was constantly tired, crabby and on edge. I had trouble staying awake and caught myself falling asleep at the wheel. I began having road rage. My nerves were frazzled and my sense of humor was gone completely, I began to snap at people on my route and back at the lab. This landed me in trouble at my job.
It was becoming a near weekly occurrence that my boss would call me into her office to have a word with me about my attitude. She was unsympathetic to the situation at home, and advised me to break up with my sweetie. Her viewpoint was that he would never change (people like him never do) and was beyond redemption. I was unwilling to do that. As much of an asshole as he was drunk, he was made of pure awesome when he wasn't. I just wanted him to get his drinking under control.
By failing to heed her advice I had somehow made an enemy of her and she took it out on me in various ways, finding fault with me where ever she could. Nothing I did was good enough. She suddenly decided she didn't like the concert t-shirts I was wearing and insisted I start wearing a company uniform shirt instead. There was only one other person there who was required to wear them, and they were obviously on her shit list as well. Other drivers were still wearing concert shirts, Sturgis shirts, etc. The rule only seemed to apply to me and shit list guy. She'd give my regular route to other drivers and force me to work in the lab all day and do short runs instead. She gave me shit jobs to do and would hover around waiting to see if I complained so she could write me up for it. When we had our monthly company meetings they would always order food to be delivered for them, and she would make sure I was sent out for a delivery while they were happening. This had me missing out on the free lunch and also forced me to get the info from the meeting secondhand. Just because I missed the meeting didn't mean I wasn't expected to know what new policy changes had been made...
She lightened up a bit when my mom moved back to Minnesota from Oklahoma and got a job at the lab too. It was quite obvious to me that she'd been singling me out, and I suspect she knew my mom would've spoken up if she continued. So she was nice to me when my mom was around. Mom worked the day shift and I worked nights. If I punched in on time and got my regular route, I only had to deal with the boss for 45 minutes. By the time I got back from my route, my mom was clocked in and I only had another 30 minutes or so before I was done for the day. I spent my time in the lab walking on eggshells and trying to avoid the boss.
My mom was less than thrilled with my sweetie as well, she thought I had made a horrible error in judgment. Since she had just recently been divorced for the 3rd time she didn't feel like she was in a position to judge, but she warned me that he seemed to have a terrible temper and she was worried about me. Even so she acknowledged that I was an adult, my decisions were my own and she let me make them without interference (thanks mom).
The year wasn't all bad. There was more camping at our favorite spot. He taught me how to fish and we went fishing a lot on my days off. Mostly shore fishing but every so often we'd rent a boat and go sit in the middle of the lake. I got my first computer and joined the rest of the world on the internet. It was also the year I saw the aurora borealis for the first time - it was an epiphany for me.
Somehow I managed to make it through 1999 without my head imploding, but I was slowly beginning to unravel.
My sweetie's drinking was completely epic by this point. He had lost his job and unable to pay his rent, he was evicted from his apartment. I let him move into mine. I met his mom for the first time and was both awestruck and completely intimidated by her. I have no idea what she thought of me at the time...
Over the course of the year I discovered just how bad his alcoholism had gotten. Because his behavior was so erratic and I felt a constant need to keep track of him, I was in a perpetual state of sleep deprivation. He was like Jekyll and Hyde. Sober, he was sweet and considerate - drunk and he turned into a snarling monster, spewing vitriol at anyone unfortunate enough to get in his way. He frequently borrowed stuff and returned it broken. He would binge drink and after he passed out, he soiled the bed. I spent much of my time off washing the bedding, trying to replace broken items and doing damage control with our management company about the volume of the music/other noise coming from my apartment along with doing my duties as building caretaker.
I feel like I was as much at fault for my sweetie's drinking as he was. There were too many times over the year when I bought his beer just to avoid the fight I knew would come if he was forced to go without. Enabling I guess they call it. At the time, I just called it keeping the peace. Not that things were any more peaceful when he had his beer mind you. He could easily drink a 12 pack a day like it was nothing and I was eventually able to accurately gauge his mood by counting how many cans he'd gone through. 3-6 cans and he's happy, social and playing his guitar. 7-9 cans and he became moody and argumentative. 10-12 cans and he would bitch at me about the crap he endured as a young boy living with his mom - "Ya know what my mom had on the back of the toilet when I was a kid?! A FUCKING PENIS GUILLOTINE!!! And she thought it was FUNNY!" *sigh* Christ. What could she have possibly been thinking with that thing?! (Seriously. If you're reading this, have a son and you own one of these things, go smash it with a hammer and throw it in the trash. You'll be doing your boy and his future girlfriend(s) a solid. Do it now. I'll wait...)
Sleep deprivation plus a driving job is a recipe for disaster. I was trying to make up for it by driving like a bat out of hell to get my deliveries done early and then I would grab a nap for an hour at a rest area. I also drank ridiculous amounts of coffee. None of this was working well unfortunately. I was constantly tired, crabby and on edge. I had trouble staying awake and caught myself falling asleep at the wheel. I began having road rage. My nerves were frazzled and my sense of humor was gone completely, I began to snap at people on my route and back at the lab. This landed me in trouble at my job.
It was becoming a near weekly occurrence that my boss would call me into her office to have a word with me about my attitude. She was unsympathetic to the situation at home, and advised me to break up with my sweetie. Her viewpoint was that he would never change (people like him never do) and was beyond redemption. I was unwilling to do that. As much of an asshole as he was drunk, he was made of pure awesome when he wasn't. I just wanted him to get his drinking under control.
By failing to heed her advice I had somehow made an enemy of her and she took it out on me in various ways, finding fault with me where ever she could. Nothing I did was good enough. She suddenly decided she didn't like the concert t-shirts I was wearing and insisted I start wearing a company uniform shirt instead. There was only one other person there who was required to wear them, and they were obviously on her shit list as well. Other drivers were still wearing concert shirts, Sturgis shirts, etc. The rule only seemed to apply to me and shit list guy. She'd give my regular route to other drivers and force me to work in the lab all day and do short runs instead. She gave me shit jobs to do and would hover around waiting to see if I complained so she could write me up for it. When we had our monthly company meetings they would always order food to be delivered for them, and she would make sure I was sent out for a delivery while they were happening. This had me missing out on the free lunch and also forced me to get the info from the meeting secondhand. Just because I missed the meeting didn't mean I wasn't expected to know what new policy changes had been made...
She lightened up a bit when my mom moved back to Minnesota from Oklahoma and got a job at the lab too. It was quite obvious to me that she'd been singling me out, and I suspect she knew my mom would've spoken up if she continued. So she was nice to me when my mom was around. Mom worked the day shift and I worked nights. If I punched in on time and got my regular route, I only had to deal with the boss for 45 minutes. By the time I got back from my route, my mom was clocked in and I only had another 30 minutes or so before I was done for the day. I spent my time in the lab walking on eggshells and trying to avoid the boss.
My mom was less than thrilled with my sweetie as well, she thought I had made a horrible error in judgment. Since she had just recently been divorced for the 3rd time she didn't feel like she was in a position to judge, but she warned me that he seemed to have a terrible temper and she was worried about me. Even so she acknowledged that I was an adult, my decisions were my own and she let me make them without interference (thanks mom).
The year wasn't all bad. There was more camping at our favorite spot. He taught me how to fish and we went fishing a lot on my days off. Mostly shore fishing but every so often we'd rent a boat and go sit in the middle of the lake. I got my first computer and joined the rest of the world on the internet. It was also the year I saw the aurora borealis for the first time - it was an epiphany for me.
Somehow I managed to make it through 1999 without my head imploding, but I was slowly beginning to unravel.
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