Episode 4: Dogs and Other Things That Shit and Breathe

It has come to my attention over the last several years that I may quite possibly have the worst luck of anyone I know. From 6 flat tires and over a dozen blown out light bulbs in just one year to missing appointments and getting screwed out of 20 grand, I’ve experienced a wide range of rather “shitty” things. It has also come to my attention that most of these experiences are results of my own abundance of inattention, stress and inpatients.

Now, I’m not some crazy drug-addicted low-life who lives in a hovel and barely makes it from pay to pay. I’m actually a quite fortunate girl who comes from a good family, who was brought up well. I’m going to school for nursing, I’m in the Army National Guard, I make good grades and I have a really good job at Sam’s Club. I also teach dance at a studio and do floor sets for American Eagle Outfitters. My problems, however, get me into terrible situations and include but are not limited to spending, being impatient, not paying attention, having too much on my mind, and forgetfulness and PROCRASTINATION. Oh and my priorities sometimes suck. I live with my grandmother who can’t work anymore so instead she keeps the house clean and does laundry. She treats this like a job, so I usually either don’t do a good enough job to suit her, or I just don’t have time to do things like laundry right away and so she does it instead. I pretty much have it made.

So. Let me tell you about this past week.

But first,

You need to know about a few months ago.

Basically when school started in August of last year, I hadn’t yet done my FAFSA. I procrastinated, missed every deadline, kept forgetting to get my parents’ tax information and just generally sucking at life. So this went on for a full semester and at the end of it, once it was too late to do much, the FAFSA people told me that I could just do it all for next semester and get all of the money. This was all fine and dandy since I’d made it through a whole semester without my usual 3 grand, but I owed my parents and grandparents money for books and car parts.

So

Here we are at my current situation last week. NO money. NO gas. (Well, enough to get to school, but not enough to get all the way home without cashing that check.) No cat food, and my car REALLY needed fixed, which I’ll get to in a second.

Monday, Dec. 9th - It was Christmas break from school and my grandmother had decided to go to Cleveland to visit her other granddaughter for two weeks. My boyfriend and I took her up there and came back to my house, where we’d be for about two weeks.

Wednesday, Dec. 11th - A few weeks before I had noticed that my back right tire was getting low. I borrowed my grandparents’ (my dad’s parents, who live down the street from my mom’s mom, with whom I live) air compressor and kept airing it up. After about four or five days it would get low again and I’d air it up. After a couple of weeks of this I went to my dad’s friend’s tire shop and had it looked at. The rim was slightly bent so he slapped some extra sealant on it, reattached the tire and sent me on my way.

On my way home from work that night I was driving 35 in a 45 and hit a huge pothole that I never even saw. I had an “oh fuck” moment but made it the last 2 minutes home before checking my tire. Nothing seemed amiss and I could hear no air leaking so I went inside and went to bed.

Thursday, Dec. 12th – I go out to my car around 4:00 pm, trying to leave for work, and realize that my right FRONT tire is completely flat. At this point I didn’t have time to try and air it up before work and it was parked behind my grandmother’s car, so I couldn’t even use hers for work. I called down the street to my other grandmother and borrowed my pap’s car for work.

Friday, Dec. 13th – My boyfriend comes over and is getting ready for work. He tells me he’ll back out my disabled Cobalt since the rim was all bent up anyhow. That way, I could drive my grandma’s car to work. While in the bathroom getting ready I heard a loud noise but thought nothing of it. A few minutes later my poor boyfriend comes in to tell me that he’d back right into my mailbox and smashed out the right taillight in his fairly new Ford Escape. I felt terrible and very much like it was my fault since it only happened since he was trying to be nice and back out my car for me. He’s a good driver and would/had never backed into anything, plus his Escape has a sensor that beeps when he’s getting close to something, so I have no idea how this happened and neither does he.

Sunday, Dec. 15th – I spent most of the day at my mom’s, helping her cook food for a card-making party that she was to have later in the evening. I ended up staying there way too long and not getting grandma’s house cleaned as I had planned. Upon returning to grandma’s, I realized that I had locked myself out of the house. I had been using her car, and she had taken her house key off of her car key ring in order to take it to Cleveland with her, so when I left I didn’t bring my own house key because I thought hers was still on her key ring. I had to call my dad and have him break the knob on the basement door with channel locks so that I could get inside.

Monday, Dec. 16th – On this night I realized that I really needed to get the house clean for grandma’s return on Saturday because I was starting school and work again on Tuesday and would never have time during the week to clean up all of the house, and besides that I wanted to leave Thursday evening for Columbus to visit my best friend. I ended up not having time to do it because I had to run errands and I had dinner with my mom at her house, so I went home and went to bed. I didn’t want for school to start up again but I knew I’d have a nice fat refund check waiting for me. That night I planned out my next day and what I could go buy after work, making list upon list in order to prioritize what I needed to get with the money and what I needed to put back for vacation and such. I had to be up at six A.M. and didn’t end up falling asleep until around 12:30 A.M. At five my dog woke me up for the second time that morning, so that he could go to the bathroom. After I let him out to go he came in and drank two giant bowls of water, which I thought was really strange, but I wanted to sleep so I didn’t think much about it.

Tuesday, Dec. 17th – Finally! It was here, the day I’d kind of been waiting for. Class would suck but I could get my refund check and buy shit!!!! I got up a little late but left an hour early so that I could get to the school at eight A.M. so that I could be among the first in line for a refund check. After waiting a half hour it was my turn to go into the business office. I got really nervous and went inside, only to find out that they hadn’t yet processed my account and my check wouldn’t be in until Friday. It also would only be five of the eight grand.

Fuck.

I didn’t know how I was going to get home because I didn’t have gas. Everything online said that all my money was at the school. If I had just called in and asked about it, maybe it would have been done on time. Three days isn’t a lot of time to wait unless you’re completely broke and your cats need food. I texted my good friend Jesse, who happened to be on campus, and borrowed $20 for gas. Class went by quickly and I coasted down off of the hill to a gas station. I bought a soda and some gas and started to make my way towards the dance studio where I would have class in a few hours. I figured I’d relax and read and work on some dances for our recital before class started.

Wrong. Way wrong.

I squeezed my soda too hard when I reached to throw away a cup that I had meant to remove from my cup holder the night before. The soda spilled right onto my crotch, soaking my only pair of pants and also my grandma’s nice, clean car seat. I quickly hopped out of the car, dabbed up the soda, and got on of her floor rugs from the back to sit on. I had to drive all the way home to change before the dance class, so I headed that way.

Once I got there I changed and cleaned up, cleaned out the car and decided to play the Sims. I let out my dog, Pavlov, for about fifteen minutes. You see, he has a 15 foot lead that we have tied to a post on the porch so I just clip him to it and open the door and he goes out. I always have to watch him go to the bathroom to make sure he goes before I let him in. I WATCHED him shit in the yard, then made myself a cup of coffee. He was out there for around 20 minutes before I let him in. It wasn’t raining but it had been so it was very wet outside. I wiped off his feet, washed my hands, and sat down at the computer to play.

About five minutes later someone unlocked the door and came inside. I heard my brother’s voice yelling at Pavlov to “get down.” I thought this was strange since my brother was always super nice to Pavlov. I yelled out to him to say hi, and he yelled back that Pavlov had shit on the carpet.

“Are you fucking serious? HE WAS JUST OUTSIDE!!!

“Yeah,” he said, “it’s everywhere.”

So I walked out to the kitchen and sure enough, he had shit ALL OVER the carpet.

Half was solid waste and the rest was diarrhea. As you can tell from the pic, it looked as if he had been running in a circle while shitting. I stared in disbelief, panic rising in my voice.

“WHAT THE FUCK!?!? I seriously just had him the fuck outside!!! I WATCHED HIM TAKE A SHIT IN THE YARD FIVE MINUTES AGO.”

So Steven helped me clean up the bulk of the mess and I called up to Cleveland to find out where grandma kept the carpet scrubber. The floor was seriously a fucking mess and would need some incredible scrubbing. I called only to find out that the scrubber was all the way in Barnesville, 25 minutes away, because my aunt’s dog had shit all over her carpet as well. What the fuck are the odds?

My brother offered to go get the scrubber while I did what I could for the carpet. While he was gone I also looked up the price of linoleum because I sure as fuck wasn’t going to keep cleaning up carpet in a kitchen that shouldn’t have it anyhow. Steven had let Pavlov out when he came in, and the dog was running around eating random shit (well, stuff) out of the neighbors’ fire pits. Go figure, it had started POURING down rain so he was soaked and muddy.

I had to call and tell my student’s mom that I couldn’t do her class today because I had to catch and clean my dog and floor, and she was very understanding.

Today has pretty much fucking sucked and it’s all because I procrastinated on my FAFSA. Had I completed that on time I wouldn’t have had to wait for my check, Pavlov would have remained in his cage, either reducing or avoiding the mess altogether.

And I sure as fuck wouldn’t have been playing the Sim’s, because Jes and I would have been out shopping.

Goddamnit,

-ZS

Episode 3: She was...

Beauty, even in Death.

Have you ever "Googled" yourself? C'mon, sure you have. If not, maybe you've thought about it, or maybe now you are thinking about it or even trying it. If you haven't, maybe someone else has. A late night creeper episode from the boy down the lane, someone trying to see if you're actually famous. You probably get results like

So-And-So l Facebook, or So-And-So on Twitter (@soandso), or So-And-So insert-random-stupid-highscool-MySpace-name-here. Maybe some YouTube videos if they have them, maybe some random stuff for people with the same name, maybe a work-related website or a people search. Well, if you search

Gloria Dawes, it's a little different.

Gloria Dawes - News, Sports, Jobs - The Intelligencer... "Sep 6, 2011 – DAWES, Gloria M., 22, of Adena, Ohio, loving daughter and cherished granddaughter, was killed in an auto accident Sunday, September 4, ..."

Gloria Dawes, The Post

OHIO: Compass - University mourns loss of student. Gloria M. Dawes, 22, who died in an auto accident on Sunday, Sept. 4.

gloria dawes - WOUB - Counseling Available For Those Who Knew Gloria Dawes.

Dawes was killed in car crash over the weekend.

Oh, and here's one for Facebook: A permanent tribute to Gloria Dawes: This page was created to showcase the tattoos G's family, friends, and fans have gotten in memory of her.

You know, Gloria had been in the paper a few times. I've been in the paper a few times. My friends have been in the paper a few times. Mentions, pictures, articles, whatever. You never imagine that at 22 it's going to be your friend's obituary that you have to read. And you know, I still have trouble thinking that it's hers.

"Crash Claims Adena Woman."

No, that's not Gloria. They're talking about someone else. Woman? Gloria was my friend from high school, still a girl like me.

Except

We're not just girls anymore. One day I'll even be old. But not poor G.

You know it's hard even to write this, because I can't stop crying. Sometimes I feel like a fool because, honestly, Gloria and I weren't' that close. At least, not in the past couple of years. We'd say Hi on Facebook, I'd text her for advice on piercings and tattoos now and then, but the last time I saw her? That's been over a year ago, now. I babysat Rufio for her before she went to the beach. With her family. Always her family.

I'll never forget the way she looked. Beautiful, as always. So tiny and cute, with perfect cat-eye makeup and a smile with those beautiful teeth. Her hair was done up nice, as usual as well, and she wore skinny jeans and sandals and I noticed she now had tattoos on her feet. I hugged her small frame and thought about how much I needed to lose weight.

I hadn't seen her in a WHILE but it didn't matter, she asked about nursing, I asked about dancing, we talked for a bit and I got Rufio's things and put them in my messy car. I remember she had her personalized license plates and a Macbook box in her back seat. Stupid little things you remember.

The next time I saw her was about a week later when I met them in the parking lot at Oglebay before work and returned her kitten to her. Another hug, "I got you something at the beach!" "You shouldn't have!" I never knew that I'd never see her again and I never knew that I'd never get that gift in person.

I still can barely even TALK about Gloria. I can't imagine the pain of her best friends and family when I can't even deal with thinking about her.

But man, back in high school. I really looked up to Gloria. There were times when I was uptight about things that she was doing but I ended up doing them anyhow, with different people, so what did it matter? I got to experience so much with G and her family. God I'll NEVER forget summers at Grandma and Pap-pap's lake house at Seneca. We got our boating licenses together, and I rode jet skis for the first and last time ever, and I left my license in one of them. It didn't matter, though, because I didn't get to drive boats and jet skis with anyone else. I remember Gloria and Becca fighting and I had to laugh because Steven and I always fought too. Neither of those girls seemed like they would fight with each other but they did.

Gloria and I danced together, at Oglebay, which was a wonderful experience that I never would have had without her and her family, once again. I feel bad now because I remember Shelley taking us to some of our Mini-Nut performances and me listening to headphones. It was rude. I should have been talking to them and being appreciative of the ride. I was just awkward back then.

I'll NEVER forget my high school hormones and being upset over stupid boys, but even more than that I'll never forget Gloria saying to me as we got on the interstate one day, in her mom's car, that I was beautiful and that I could easily have any guy I wanted. Dear God, Gloria, you were an amazing person.

We did OVAC dance line together and our first year or two, it was just us. We were really good and we roomed together. I remember we were ALWAYS on completely opposite ends of the dance line, on the very ends, because we were both the shortest girls there. I remember having so much fun laughing together about some of the mean girls' makeup and stupid attitudes, and I'll never forget when Lindsey Mendleson told this one girl, whose name shall not be mentioned here, that she needed to wear darker lipstick because she looked ridiculous and very much like she had no lips. We almost died laughing. That girl shouldn't have been nasty to us!

We cheered together, often laughing about everything and nothing. Best friends? No, but damn we did spend a lot of time together. I'll never forget our senior year of high school and OVAC cheer camp for the All-star game. We'd both made the big decision not to do the dance line this year, and we both were nominated for cheerleading. Almost every school there just had one girl sent forth, but ours had two: Me and G. I'll never forget going there and thinking, "Oh god, these girls are going to be a lot different from us, and I'll be awkward and Gloria is always friends with everyone." Well G was thinking too after our first practice that this was going to be hell. We didn't really like anyone. Honestly now I feel REALLY bad about that and I remember one night (we roomed together during camp, too) talking about it together. We both decided that we'd been silly because these girls were AWESOME and so much fun, too. We decided that probably everyone had come in with the same mindset as us, because none of us really talked or got along much during the first few practices, but after that you'd have thought we were all best friends.

I remember once sitting in Wendy's in the Ohio Valley Mall with one of Gloria's boyfriends who was total dick-head and thinking to myself, "Why is Gloria with this dude? He's good looking and all but he's kind of an ass and G is way better than him." He kept loudly making fun of and criticizing this indian couple who were in there. I thought of how opposite he and G were. I mean, don't get me wrong, all of us girls would laugh about things that probably weren't very nice, but I'm sorry, so do most other people. We weren't asses about it though.

I remember G was always beautiful and cute, like I said earlier, but she always liked crazy new weird things, and did her own thing a lot of the time. Sometimes I looked at her like "Dude, really?" But everything she did just fit her so well and you'd end up being like, "That Gloria." And smile and shake your head. I still wear my sweatpants inside out all the time, as do a lot of people, but I'll never forget that Gloria was the first person I saw do that. My mom, our cheerleading coach said, "Gloria, why do you have your pants on inside out?" "Because they were dirty." I think she had in a side ponytail that day.

I think a lot of the time I was a little jealous of Gloria, but not in a vengeful, mean sort of way. It was a way that made me want to be better. I wanted to be healthy and take care of myself, yeah, duh, but I wanted to be nice like Gloria and have that many friends and be that true to people. She'd be in the mall and see you and come up to you and honestly want to know how you were doing. Not because it was polite and nice, but because she cared. Jeeze, half the time I see someone from high school and go the other way. Not because I don't like them, but because I'm so busy that I don't take the time to see everyone and how they're doing. Which reminds me that I'm supposed to have a 5 year reunion ready for spring and figure out some sort of memorial for Gloria and some of our other students. I need to stop being so lazy. Gloria probably would have had all of this done by now!

Oh, I remember one time she had on this makeup and I told her that it really made her eyes look even more awesome than normal, and she's the one who told me about this makeup that complimented the color of your eyes. I went right out and bought some. Kind of like when I saw her awesome cell phone. I called her and asked if she minded if I got the same one as her, because hers made me want one just like it! Of course Gloria laughed and said "I don't care, Kelsay!"

The very last memories I have of G, unfortunately, are of her lying still in her casket. Her casket. That sounds so wrong. Gloria at rest sounds wrong. She was so damn full of life, so vibrant and caring, understanding and loving, and so many other adjectives. Not that anyone should die, but of all people I know... Her? It seemed so impossible. Of anyone's family for this to happen, why hers? It was so backward.

Somehow now I feel closer to her than I did before. I'm so, so very angry with myself for never solidifying those plans to get together, for not texting or calling her more. When was the last time I called her? On my way home from Columbus, AFTER I'd found out that she'd passed away. I had to tell her that I loved her, because I realized that I really had. I felt guilty for a while after her death because I was so very upset and wanted to be around for everything because I couldn't believe that I hadn't seen her family for so long. I also thought, however, that it shouldn't be me with them so much, but Gloria's closest friends. During and after the funeral, however, I realized that we had been pretty close, and that she's a HUGE part of what I am today, and that we had many, many memories together.

And you know, I'll say it for probably the third or fourth time, that Gloria truly was beautiful. It wasn't right to see her lying there, but I have to admit, that even in death, Gloria Michelle Dawes was beautiful.

Z