Down From The Ledge

NOTE: I plan to update this post accordingly throughout the day, so check back.

6:30am

Deep breath. In through the nose... out through the mouth.

My humblest thanks to everyone who offered their help and words of encouragement. It really is gonna be ok. You know me, though. I'm a panicker.

Here's what I'm going to do today:

At 7:30am, as soon as it opens, I'm going to call the DMV office in Jeff City to see if there's a kind soul who'll listen to my story and take pity on me. And I'll either see if they can speed up the process or allow me to make a new, this time expedited request.

I'm so not above bribery at this point. Maybe I'll offer to knit them a FunFur scarf or something. Or better yet - I'll save that as my proverbial Can O' Whoopass, as in "Don't MAKE me knit yer ass a FunFur sling!!" I actually kinda like that idea.

The outcome of this phone call will determine what I do next. Stay tuned.

7:40am

I got up, showered, donned my Power Panties, my comfiest bra and my Life Is Good t-shirt for inspiration, and took my meds before calling the DMV office.

I spoke with Connie at the DMV. She was extremely nice and she listened to my entire sob story and offered some hope. She said they no longer charge an additional fee for the Expedited Processing. Now I don't know if that means they're acknowledging that there's no such thing as expedited processing and the people that paid more to get it were getting pissed off or something, but at least the local DMV office is off my shit list now since they really had no reason to offer R the super-quick service, and I don't have to reapply since doing so would gain me nothing and of course, given my craptastic luck, I'd cancel the current application and reapply and the next day the first one would show up in my mailbox.

She also said it won't take anywhere close to four to six weeks, so her advice was to wait it out, and if it still hasn't come by the end of the week, call back. She didn't say what they could do for me if it hadn't come by then, but hopefully it won't come to that. She checked to see if it had been entered into The System yet (don't you love how every business has The System and if something's wrong they always blame it on something going awry within The System?), and it hadn't, but she assured me that was okay, it will probably go in today, and once it's in it won't take long for me to get it.

I hate waiting, but it's all I can do.

2:17pm

Ok, so I'm trying really hard not to think about the duplicate title application sitting in a pile on a desk in my local DMV office waiting for some genius to enter it into The System.

So let's talk about other stuff.

I'm settling into my role as a Van Mom. I seriously have no idea how we ever got along without a van. I LOVE it.

It was becoming a borderline child abuse situation.




MUCH better.



Oh, and there's some other random drama going on, too.

When I picked Pie and Beebie up from school one day last week, Beebie mentioned that her little boyfriend Romeo was not allowed to go to the library anymore. The first thing that came to my mind, given my Puritanical upbringing, was that maybe he had uberconservative parents who found out there was a book called Daddy's Boyfriend in the library or something and forbid him to go into that den of sin. I don't know if there's a book called that or not, and I don't care.

But when I asked her, Beebie said that he was climbing up the shelves like a ladder. A genius, he isn't. I asked her if she saw him do it, and she said that she did, and she told him to stop but he didn't, and the librarian called down to Mr. Sumner and he is now banned from the school library because he doesn't know how to behave.

I asked Beebie what she thought of this, and she said she thought she should talk to him. I don't know if she did or not. I should also point out that apparently Beebie and Romeo's relationship is on the down-low. Interesting.

Oh, and get this - remember how Beebie decided she wanted to do GIrl Scouts at her new school and I was all for it because the troop was already established and nobody was going to try to con me into running for Troop Leader. Several weeks ago, we filled out an interest form indicating that we'd like more information about meeting times and whatnot, and we have yet to hear from them. I'm pretty sure there's a Girl Scout Troop Blacklist, and that bitch Stella's behind it.

Never confuse Stella with Anti-Stella. Anti-Stella's kickass. She's watching the boys for me so I don't have to take them with me to my cooter rootin'. Last time I was there I took the boys into the room with me in the double stroller. That's how long it's been. I'm like 2 years overdue. My kooch probably looks like my ironing board.

And something else I have to tell you about is this - in the three years that we've lived in this house, never once have I spoken to the owner of the leasing company. I'm always dealing with his idiot assistant. Imagine my surprise when I get a phone call from Mr. Beaver (Remember when his emails kept getting blocked? That was funny) alerting me to the fact that the homeowners had called him to find out "If the downed tree limb was still in the front yard."

Well, yeah, it's still down in the front yard. I mean, if it's the branch I assume you're talking about. Why?

The owners have received a citation from the city telling them that they need to get it out of the front yard or they'll receive a $1000 fine. So they want you to get it out of the yard.

Are you serious?? This is the first I've heard of it. I mean, yeah, it's been in the front yard for months but it's not in the way of anything and not on the neighbor's property, and I didn't think it was even that visible from the street.

Well, can you at least move it to the backyard or something? It needs to be out of the yard by tomorrow.

Thanks for the notice, owners. Uh... no... it's not a huge branch, but it's too big for me to move it by myself. We can move it when my husband gets home.

That's fine, I'll let Bob know.

So we moved it to the back. I mean, I felt kinda bad for it being a problem, but nobody told me it was a problem, and I had to wait for them to call Evilite and for Evilite to call me and five me a 24-hour deadline when I would have moved it a long time ago if somebody'd let me know It was a fuckin' issue. Whatever. Why didn't the city just leave a note on my door? Would have been taken care of tout de suite.

So I figured I had about a week until Bob showed up in his truck that looks like the one Jed Clampett drove to Beverly... Hills, that is. But today when I came home from dropping Beebie and Tito off at school, it was gone. So I can't take a picture of how Not Big Enough To Be A Fuckin' Problem it really was. But I'll see if I can't find some way to convey it for you.

We're on a main street in our city, so I know they drive around looking for Beautification Issues, but there's no way somebody driving by would have seen it from the street. We assume our neighbor is the one who ratted us out for Having a Large Branch in the Front Yard. At first I thought it might have been the cop who came to tell me Tito was flirting with danger, but then I figured that was probably too recently and the owners had presumably had some time to contact, um, ME, but they chose to wait until the last second to throw it on me. Assholes.

I can't WAIT to get out of here.

5:11pm

Plan B.

Assistance has been offered by a somewhat unlikely source. The Aldis (no, that's not a typo, THE ALDIS) said they'd spot us the cash if the title doesn't get here in the next couple of days. We were stunned.

I was hoping it wouldn't come to this, but when we get the check from the insurance company, the bank would put a 5-day hold on it anyway, which means the latest we could get the check and deposit it in time for it to be in the bank on the 3rd is tomorrow, so yeah, we'll pretty much have to take them up on this offer. Gih, I hate borrowing money. But there's no way around it.

Which is not to say that I'm ungrateful to them or to everyone else who so kindly offered their assistance and encouragement. I very humbly thank you all. It blows my mind that learning to knit has brought me so much more than just the simple joy of taking a ball of yarn and two sticks and making it into something fabulous.

It's expanded my network of friends beyond anything I could have imagined. And not even just the friends from the Knittyboard, the other non-knitters who have come upon this blog one way or another. I'm pretty transparent on here, what ya see is what ya get, so you all really do know the real me. Just think - I had never learned to knit, our paths may never have crossed.

I doubt the idea of starting a blog would even have occurred to me had I not wanted the other Knitties to think I was cool, and it's become such a cathartic outlet for my stress and bitterness, plus it's great to feel like people are going to be happy with me when good stuff happens. I love the security of knowing that there are people all over the world looking out for me, and I've never even met them. That's so cool.

And kinda weird at the same time, but cool.