Late, Gas, Broke

Wednesday, November 22, 2023 - 5:53 PM

WUFF. Today was rough. I was set to work at SF today, since they're short-handed and doing a Thanksgiving Break camp this week, so not only was I supposed to get there an hour early, at 8am, buuuut my commute was an hour fifteen on top of that. Yeaaaaah, and I'm chronically late. Which is not good.

And thennn...! the gas light came on in my car. Well, fuck. Can I get there, at least? Nah. Cool. Cool, cool. Plus I'm epic levels of broke, because apparently, we are in our off season at the horse riding stables I work at, and I've had waaaaaay too many work days with zero or just one or two lessons scheduled, and I am fuckin' dying.

But I did have $9 of actual cash money on me from tips, so I poured that into the gas tank, and it got me there, at least. A half hour late, between my own natural lateness and the gas-buying adventure, but still.

Work was fine. Well. Yanno. Fine. The people I was working with were also mutually late, The One With The Keys had car trouble, and the other one who was trekking out there because she doesn't usually work out there was also running behind. But eventually we got in, got the horses ready and kids checked in, and away we went. The day itself was chill, nothing to write home about, and I even got to leave early. Which is a mixed blessing in my financial situation, but given it's also my mate's birthday, I will TAKE having the extra energy for the thing!

Of course, the question of getting enough gas to get home still loomed. Eventually, I ended up shuffling around a couple dollars between two checking accounts and transferred an $11 balance I'd left in my PayPal so it couldn't get eaten by overdraft fees so I could buy a whole $15 of gas. But hey! It filled my tank a quarter of the way and got me home!

Yeah, shit's been hard. Better than it's ever been, since I'm not living with my abusers or in an abusive educational program for the first time in my life, doing a job I love and living with my wonderful, beautiful mates and our adorable kitties, but still hard.