Number crunching. in A small but passable life.

Last Saturday the daughter and I made a trip to Crackerville North, to her mother’s house. It was nice to be in the van on the highway again, even though I was in the passenger seat and the A/C isn’t fixed yet. It’s been since early in 2013 that I’ve been on the highway in the van.

I had a project to do. Jassy’s great-grandpa had built a solar collector from plans in a Popular Mechanics magazine. It hadn’t been used in years and it needed to be torn down as it was falling apart.

I removed the glass panels and found much rotted wood. Jassy and I set the glass aside and I tore the rest apart. After about three hours I had it demolished and the pieces tossed over the back fence. Jassy helped me carry the glass panels to the garage to be saved. It was all down except one of the two metal support frames. One nut refused to budge. It’s always the last nut that’s the problem. WD-40, and every trick I knew wouldn’t budge it. It didn’t help that all I had was a 10 inch Crescent (open end adjustable) wrench. All my open end/box end wrenches were at the house in the other tool box. I had only brought the carpenter box. Damn.

I spent the rest of the day in the house with Jassy and her mom while they worked on napkins for Rachel’s wedding. Jassy’s mom cooked us a good lunch.

On the way back to the city we stopped at Sonic. The conclusion of a very hot and humid day called for a cherry limeade. Oh yeah. Jassy also bought me a small chili cheese Coney and dinner for her and Clayton. The total was $17 something and when she handed a twenty to the young carhop and told her to keep the change, the girl really didn’t know how to comprehend that. She was rather flabbergasted.

Since that day I haven’t been outside much. I’m not really in the mood for 90+ degree weather with high humidity. I stay in and read. Not much change from when I was living in the van. In the van though I’d be bailing out and going elsewhere when the temperature was below 50 degrees or as soon as it reached 90 degrees. And of course I spent every evening at Hardee’s no matter the weather. No, not much different now.

I finished reading “The Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future” by Martin Ford. A very eye opening book. Basically what the story is, is that we need to take greed out of the system and make a whole paradigm shift in thinking as a civilization or we’re fucked. Well, all but the richest, greediest few. And even they probably won’t make it alone. The future will either be wonderful for all, terrible for most, or civilization simply reverting back 10,000 years and starting over.

I’ve done some number crunching. I found the last statement from the SS folks. It has my whole work earnings from 1974, when I started work at age 15, until 2008, the last year I worked. Thirty-five years of work. I added it all up- $282,254. Then I averaged it out- $8034 per year. I guess I’ve always been a broke-ass poor white boy. Then I got to thinking, I should add up my bills, at least the main ones, you know, just out of curiosity. So yeah: Rent- I figured $300 a month would be a good average. That comes out to be about $122,400. Child support and medical insurance premiums totaled about $56,000. And the two vehicles I had for the last twenty years- the 1990 Escort GT for $5000 and the 1993 Chevy van for $5500. And last, let’s figure $25 a week for groceries, that’s $45,500.

Oh yeah, I need to add in the little over $20,000 for 874 plasma donations I made over the span of ten years. And subtract a couple of thousand dollars of repairs to the Escort over nine years. And subtract a couple thousand dollars for computers.

Nope, nobody can ever accuse me of being rich. I’ve just been a simple man content with simple pleasures. Books, road trips, backpacking and camping,

I’ve never owned a dishwasher or a lawnmower.

I’ve never bought a brand new car or bed.

I’ve never owned a boat or hot tub.

I’ve never dealt drugs, thieved, gambled, or pimped out a girlfriend or wife.

Well hell, that’s enough rambling for now. I know as soon as I post this I’ll think of something brilliant I could’ve added, but will also forget by the time I feel like writing another missive.

Oh yeah, I know what it was I wanted to throw out there. You know that scary point in a relationship, the point when you realize that this person that you really care about is completely, irrevocably batshit crazy? All I want to know is why it keeps being an issue, why it always happens. What I mean is, there is always that one specific point when something is said or done that becomes the “aha!” moment, when you realize that all the other things that you’ve noticed pale in comparison, that this is the real deal. That this really could be mental illness. Not merely life-coping problems, but real mental illness. Just something to contemplate.