…I’d buy a partial interest in your love (as long as it has a good rate of return)…

Once again we are going through a bit of a financial crisis as our moonlighting jobs have gone the way of the infamous dodo, a poor bird that gets blamed for leading many-a thing astray, yet, when it was still in existence, was probably a really nice fowl to know and probably never even tempted a baby to sneeze let alone lead something into non-existence. But, there it is, as such — the bird gets the rap again. Yolanda’s CD burning job with DC has been farmed out to someone else, my job with BF has been terminated as the company has been sold off, and my involvement with BH, although it didn’t really garner me a paycheck, is also in the process of being truncated as the company is being relinquished to another.

The timing is, of course, like usual, fan-fucking-tastic.

Little One is due within the next 4 to 6 weeks or so and there’s plenty to do and buy for that, although we’re mostly prepared. But of course, the biggest factor is that we have debts that are constantly reoccurring and bills to pay that, frankly, we got rather used to having the extra $1000 or so a month to take care of. Now we’re back to subsisting on my previous income level.

And the holidays! Oh, those glorious holidays that beset us on all sides with the feelings of inadequacy and the outpouring of hundreds of dollars because we’re nice, goddamit, and we refuse to be snotty and tight.

It’s at this point that I got musing today that, while people always say, “Gosh, I’d be great to win the lottery and get $150 or $200 million or heck…even FIVE million…what I would do with a million dollars, period!”, at this point in my life, I really can’t be that greedy. Sure, that’d be nice, but in reality, all I need right now is about 10 grand. That’s it. I really think that’s about all I need for now.

It’s all a matter of getting back on your feet, right? It’s not as if I have a terribly awful job, but it’s the little things that kill off the wages. Ten thousand smackaroons would enable me to erase my credit card debt that’s been plaguing me for 6 years (long after I cut up my cards), clear off all of our medical bills and pay for the kiddo’s birth, and get us caught up on normal bills. Then, with the extra money diverted from my credit cards and no extras to pay, we’d be set to go.

It seems like such a small amount of money, really. $10K is about half the price of a typical car. I could buy about 5 Macs for that. To a Fortune 500 business, it’s a drop in the bucket. I pay that much money in health insurance in 20 months. And yet, it might as well be a trillion for all that I cannot get it.

Sometimes I think about winning (or earning) gargantuan amounts of money, and I wonder…what would I do with it? Among many other things, I often think about if I would be a “random kindness” person. Would I wander around with $100 bills in my pocket, slipping them to others discretely? I’d have half a mind to get a phone book from some really, really random place, pick out 100 people, and send them each a money order for $1,000. In it, I would anonymously include a note that says, “Here’s some random kindness — use it if you need it, pass it on if you don’t,” and just see what happens. You never know what good might come of it.

Meanwhile, back in Reality, I’m working on some things to try to get us in a better place, but who knows if and when they’ll all pan out, but I’m hoping some will. Sometimes I feel like we’re always taking a step forward and several in reverse and we’ll never get dug out of these holes, but on the other hand, it can’t stay this way forever, can it?

My life is rich in many, many ways, and I don’t for one second disregard them. It’s just the unfortunate movements of small, green pieces of paper that really get me in a bind from time to time, because Real Life(tm) demands them. Money doesn’t grow on trees, I know, but can someone point me in the direction of a coin bush?