Sunday, Sept. 22, 2013 1:46 p.m.

one year ago

A year ago today, Sat. Sept. 22, 2012, a week after C's 1st birthday party, I hosted a baby shower at home in Texas for my younger sister. I can't remember the exact date of K's phone call, but it was sometime that weekend while I was home. I remember the phone call clearly. I remember where I was in my parent's house, what chair I was sitting on, and that I was trying to catch up on work and had my work laptop in front of me.

I remember him telling me that he didn't want me to worry, but that he just wanted to give me a heads up, and that something was going on with their company's financier but that they were working it out. K told me that his last paycheck had bounced, but that they were trying to sort it out and that he'd probably get paid again very soon and not to worry. I told him ok. And at that time, I wasn't worried. I assumed things would be ok. I figured that things would work out. I was prepared to go a couple weeks maybe while waiting to get the money owed to him, but for once, we were doing good financially and had money in the bank, and I knew that we'd be ok.

In looking back, I wish I had had some type of premonition, or at least awareness, of what was really happening so that I could've mentally prepared for the next year ahead of us.

That baby shower was the last time I remember having the freedom to spend money as I wanted. It's hard for me to remember what it was like to see something I wanted and actually be able to just buy it. I'm jealous of the me back then, but I also pity the me back then. I was clueless. I was entitled. I didn't know any better.

Today, being Sunday, we went out to eat brunch as a family after church (oh, we went to church and actually had an ok time; but this is another story for another entry) as that one restaurant where we have all the restaurant credit. It's our one time a week where we are able to feel "normal" again. Where we don't have to worry or stress about not having the money to spend.

It was a nice brunch...until the bill came. Remember from my last entry when I said that we don't have any money at the moment until I get paid on Wednesday (or until K gets some checks in the mail)? We have NO money. NONE. I don't think most people understand what this is like. Our debit card doesn't work since we're overdrawn. Our credit card doesn't work because we haven't paid it in a month or two. We have a couple bucks in cash, but we didn't even bring any cash with us to the restaurant. We seriously had NOTHING other than our restaurant credit.

Even at brunch we had a discussion about what to do about diapers. We only have 2 overnight diapers left and a handful of regular diapers. We literally cannot buy anything, can't even charge it, until Wednesday --
(Phone just rang, looked at called ID. It's the credit card company and I pressed ignore. That's the second call from them today. And it's Sunday even. They never give up.)
-- so we discussed what to do when we run out of diapers. Thank goodness we still have some cloth diapers that I can make work in the meantime. I'd be screwed without them. Either that, or we'd be forced into potty training again, huh? :)

ANYWAY, so the bill came. I gave them my rewards card, told them I should have plenty on it to cover our meal, the server came back a few minutes later and told me I didn't have enough to fully cover the meal and that I still owed $3.58, not including tip. Normally, this would not have been a big deal. I'd have pulled out the debit card, or credit card, or even cash. On this particular day though, it WAS a big deal. We did not even have $3.58 to cover the meal. What kind of losers are we??

I looked up our rewards points on K's phone and discovered that last time we were there, our card was accidentally rang twice for the meal, so we were double charged. Which is why I thought we should've had more credit on the card. Blah, blah, blah, to make a long story short, I was luckily able to transfer some more points into credit and got a number and name to call in order to correct the previous mistake, and all worked out ok.

But seriously, I kind of just have to laugh at everything now. We came very close to not even being able to pay a $3.58 restaurant bill? I don't know what I would've done had we not had those extra points still. What do you do if you can't pay a restaurant bill? Wash dishes? :) I suppose K could've gone out to the car and dug around to find change, and if he didn't find enough he could've driven home to look for a couple bucks more? Then we could've gotten our waitress' name, explained our situation, and promised her that we'd come back later in the week to give her her tip (which we'd of course double for her trouble). What else could we have done, right?

Oh I don't know. I just don't know anymore. Maybe this all was meant to happen to us, to teach us a lesson on humility. I didn't really think we were particularly proud people before, but maybe we just needed to be brought down to this level before we could go somewhere big for some reason. Maybe this was all meant to happen.

I don't want to yet again say that good things might be right around the corner for us and that this is just temporary - I've been saying that for way way too long and it gets exhausting to get your hopes up all the time - but this time, it really does feel like the sun is coming up soon and we only have a little bit longer to hang on.

previous | next