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