A Mortgage on Life

Today I just had to do the heartbreaking: put out to find a home for one of our pets. And I’m guessing she won’t be the last we’ll have to give up. She’s just the first because she’s female and our horny toad Loki is trying to make her go into heat – meanwhile we had to get someone to buy dog food for us last night. God Bless Fucking America.

Things went from chancy to dire here in just a couple of days flat: thanks to the Army. Pestilence had applied for unemployment. He’s looking for a job. With unemployment, we could have had some bought time while we got ourselves together from his retirement. The Army disputed his claim. Unemployment didn’t tell us that. They just let us sit here expecting a check last Friday that never came. It took a call from the VA office to unemployment to find out what was going on.

Pestilence had sold his remaining 20 days of leave. The plan was that plus his final check would give us as least one more mortgage and car payment. By the time the Army was done, we found out today, we’re expecting a whopping $66 final pay.

I’m down to literally screaming on my Deviantart journal for help. Literally. Because I don’t know what else to do. I’ve looked for work, Pestilence has been looking for work, there’s no work. Not that I could hold down a job anyway. Menstrual migraines don’t have a cure, or a help, and they’re nothing to claim social security for. Not that we can hold out the five years it takes to fight ss and usually lose… Meanwhile – this thing that’s been driving me crazy – this guy gets $55,000 to make a fucking bowl of potato salad. What the fucking HELL.

We made a gofundme page trying to at least get people to share. Yeah. Most of the shares on it are from when it was a joke page and nothing serious at all. I’m astounded. Oh yeah, people are all about ranting about how horrible it is when a vet is treated badly… until it becomes real and in their face. Then they’re like, “Oh, gotta get me some potato salad.”

I think my patriotism for the military, which I had by the bucketload when I married into it, died completely today.

A good person tries not to be bitter in these situations. We’ve been helped so much in the past years – usually because of this Army situation – that folks just don’t want to help anymore. I get that. But you know what keeps going through my mind?

There was this guy. He needed a van. Back when Pestilence and I had a lot more money…  Pestilence asked me if we could help, and I said yes. So we cleared out our savings and gave him nearly $5000 not just to buy a van, but to get tags, insurance, go get the van, and pay for food on the way. His thanks to us was to talk badly behind my back about what a crazy bitch I was and how I wasn’t good for my husband. He never paid us back. It was me who told Pestilence, “Forgive the debt. Just let it go.”

I just think I deserve better karma than what I’m being handed day after day.