My Problems Have Problems

The Things I Should Have Done 

Sometimes you get to what seems like a fork in the road, where there is a great blessing one way and a great curse the other; but yet there is no actual fork to the left and right. It is the same straight path, divided as such through your perception of it.

I woke up this Thursday morning, and had to force myself to do the exercise out of "The Secret" which is to think of 3 things that you are grateful for before getting out of bed each morning. One guy went so far as to report that he thought of the first one as he sat up in bed and the other 2 with each foot that he put on the floor.

Yesterday, I left on the bike to try to cash the stimulus check at WalMart.

I was worried about the fact that my ID has me listed as "the third" with the "III" designation after my name, but the stimulus check doesn't have that on it.

I had been told a teller at Chase Bank that she couldn't cash the thing because of that. "Why don't you just go to WalMart," she had said.

Does that mean that WalMart doesn't pay attention to such details? 

I thought about that as I pedaled the bike, aware that the front tire is pretty soft and the back one, softer than it had been when I pumped it up 2 weeks ago. I could buy a decent bike tire pump if I could cash the check.

It was a pretty hot and sweaty ride out to the WalMart about 4 miles from here. I arrived there at 4:46 p.m.

"We're closed!," said a skinny young black guy in some kind of uniform at the front door, before I had even gotten off my bike. That last part would turn out to be a blessing perhaps.

 

I started to wonder about how I have been practicing "the law of attraction" which states that, whenever you think of things that you don't want, you are attracting more such situations to yourself. 

 

But I also wondered if the calmness of mind I have been able to achieve has been preparing me to deal with the inevitable circumstances that are on the horizon that I'm unaware of, but are coming anyways; or if they are a result of that calmness, which would make them blessings in disguise.

 

"What time do you close, just so I will know for tomorrow," I asked him.

This was mostly because I wanted him to look at his watch to see that it was still 14 minutes before the next hour (it seemed unlikely that they would set their closing time at a quarter til). 

He had to admit that they were closing early "we're short staffed," and so, I had ridden the 4 miles just for exercise. 

Before I might have said "for nothing," or that it had been a waste of time. But that would only attract more nothingness and more wasting of time into my life. So, I had to come up with some way to complete the sentence "I am happy and grateful right now for ______" as I pedaled back towards Bobby's with a little over a dollar in change on me; and a check that I've had since March which has been hard to cash to say the least...

I got to the Whole Foods, which was kind of on the way back, and decided that I would go in there to look for food that both Bobby and I would like to eat, though none came to mind as I stood out front. Nothing worse than overpaying for some organic grass-fed free ranch gummy worms from that store, only to have the "beneficiary" of it say "These things are nasty," upon biting into one.

 

It's a situation that is similar to the one with Harold the cat, whom I once spent about thirty bucks on a bag of food that boasted no filler, no grains, real meat, etc. and was probably even edible by humans, though they probably couldn't boast that on the bag: "You can eat it too!!"

That time, I would have been better off buying 3 times as much of the cheap Friskies brand that Harold seems to like, because he had turned his whole body away from the bowl of the thirty dollar stuff.

I was aware that the same thing could happen with Bobby, should I spend 11 bucks on a super healthy frozen pizza, rather than trying to get a DiGourno (sp?) one for half that.

 

I came out of there right before they closed, with 4 of their paper bags with the flimsy paper handles, laden with heavy items such as bottles of juice, and a "Hummus and Kale" wood fired pizza, which was about 11 bucks. I had grabbed a pork tenderloin as insurance against "this is nasty" on the count of the thing.

 

The bags were way too heavy to even think about getting the food home in them. If the paper handles didn't break after I rode over the slightest bump in the road, the refrigerated items with their condensation moisture would make the paper soggy and fall out of the bottom. Perhaps the two things would happen simultaneously. I would have to grab some plastic bags somewhere to switch the stuff into.

The idea of the recyclable paper bags is supposedly an ecological one. Jeff Bezos can put a man in space (himself, and his underprivileged son) but he can't figure this one out? First off, they always have to double those bags; probably more to double the flimsy handles than the soggy bottoms; and so to avoid using plastic they have to use twice the amount of paper. The only sense I can make of it is that Jeff knows that most people, after having their expensive wine bottles shatter in the parking lot after the frozen whole hen has eaten its way through the bags they are in, are going to make it a point to bring their own reusable with them every time, so maybe there is a method to his madness.

 

I got to my bike outside and was unable to open the cheap lock that I had gotten at Office Supplies. The thing wasn't closed all the way, nor was it open, and it wouldn't budge from that position. I had to leave the bike locked there, as the sun was an hour from setting, and begin to walk through the heat, carrying the 4 heavy bags, trying to make it to the next place where there might be plastic bags. This turned out to be the Fresh Market, about 2 blocks away. It had crossed my mind that I should have gone there, instead of Whole Foods, for the savings, the more portable plastic bags, and the fact that I am friendly with the staff there. Had the cheap lock jammed there, I could have easily explained the situation to them, something I failed to do with the Whole Foods people. Now it is going to look like I am stealing a bike if and when I return to their rack with bolt cutters and attempt to cut the lock off. That was what I should have done...

 

I suppose if they see that mine is the only bike locked to the rack over the course of a few nights, they might believe that I own it. But I really should have told the security guy who sits overnight in their parking lot about it.

 

Then I saw a bus coming, and thought that I might use the dollar and change to ride it to within a block of Bobby's, but as I was thinking this it's sign changed from "#39 Canal/Harrah's" to "Out of Service" right before my eyes. 

Between the bike tires and the check and the bike lock and the paper bags and the buses going out of service, it would have been easy for me to think "what else could go wrong?" but this would invoke The Law of Attraction in a negative way, and I might find out in short order "what else" could go wrong.

 

So, after lying to the manager of Fresh Market: "I didn't know you guys were open; I would have come here, instead of there, with their paper bags and their high prices!" when I noticed a frown on his face as he watched me switching the ninety dollars worth of Whole Foods food into his plastic bags, I began the mile walk back to Bobby's, racing against the setting sun. It had been a "white" lie, since I really didn't know for sure they were open, and had they been closed, I wouldn't have had time to double back to Paperbagland.

 

So, this morning, I woke up at eight o' clock when Bobby emerged from his room and asked: "So, are you gonna go get your bike?" I suppose in the fogginess of his just woken mind, he didn't realize that I couldn't really get my bike because I don't have any bolt cutters.

So, the first of the three things to be grateful for before getting out of bed came to mind: "At least that cheap lock doesn't have a hardened steel clasp," I remarked, after reminding him that I didn't have bolt cutters.

 

The most speculative option I have is to use the dollar and change to take a bus to WalMart, where, if I can cash the check, many problems will be solved.

If I can't cash it, I would be walking the 4 miles back to Bobby's, or maybe the 4 miles to where Harold is still living outside Sacred Heart, to give him whatever tuna, salmon or chicken breast meat that I can acquire off my food stamp card along the way, and then the 2 miles back to Bobby's.

 

Then the next step might be to just wait until Chase Bank opens its branch where they know Bobby and then deposit the whole check into his account, then go back there with him the next day when he could withdraw it in cash and hand it to me. Then, most likely, try to borrow some of it. 

I suppose I should think of this as only being fair, since I'm staying at his place, and not try to "paint it black," thinking that he is going to then be shuffling back and forth between here and the crack dealer until such a point when he would come out of his room and say: "Daniel, I need another fifty bucks; Don't worry, I'll pay you back!"

Bobby's own check that he usually gets on the fifth of each month has been delayed this long; with the word being that the mail isn't going to start running again until next week. 

I would have to find some hiding place within the apartment to stash the money, maybe even going as far as unscrewing a light socket, wedging it in behind it, then screwing it back. An addict will look inside an acoustic guitar for an enveloped taped to its inside, and turn a backpack inside out.

Bobby has gone off to the clinic. His hip is inflamed and he is limping along very slowly. I couldn't even lend him my bike this time, as I had yesterday.

 

Part of me just wants to walk to Sacred Heart -the temperature is a merciful 76 degrees outside now- and feed Harold the cans of tuna and salmon that I got at Whole Foods, and then just patiently wait for something to happen. Like Bobby's check coming, or maybe my mom being able to wire me a little money so I can at least take the bus to the WalMart and not be vulnerable to having to walk all the way back if they don't cash mine.

 

If I can get some cash, I could buy a set of bolt cutters for 34 dollars, or whatever, and then list them on Craig's List for 24 dollars, "brand new, used only once," and recover some of the money. I wanted something that would open and close quickly. I didn't want it to need a key, and I didn't want to have to spend a half a minute going left-33-right past zero to 21-then left to 44 every time I wanted to run into a store for a minute.

Now, my bike is locked to Whole Foods and I'm about to start walking towards Harold with a can of tuna and might consider hopping on the bus to WalMart on the way back from that. It would be easy to paint it black and think that some teenager of color is going to stare at me in the customer service area, with her mouth half open, while thinking of some pat excuse for why she can't cash the thing. "We don't have enough cash in the drawer...the manager isn't here today...we need 3 forms of ID...etc."

But that is just based upon my past experiences with them..."You need to fill this out."

"Do you have a pen?"

"No." type of stuff...

While other people of color in line start to complain behind me: "Man, I don't have time for this; they ain't gonna cash that here, now move out the way!" type of stuff..like they somehow know everything about what you are trying to do; and can already tell you that the answer is "no."