I worked until February because I thought I could help train my replacement. But government regulations prohibited the city from advertising my position until the first day I wasn't working anymore. I guess in case I changed my mind. So my effort to ease the transition was wasted.
On my separation papers I checked "retirement" as my reason. The HR lady crossed that out.
I had over $10,000 in my retirement account. We cashed it out and figured it would last us until September. By then, whatever we would be doing would need to have come around.
I finished my associate's degree and intended to enroll in the state university in the next county over. Then the new state university in our county added economics degrees for the fall. That seemed propitious. I applied, was accepted, and enrolled.
At the very end of July we went to Utah for Persephone's friend's wedding. We were planning to stay until Monday morning, drive to Las Vegas and stay Monday night, then finish our trip home on Tuesday. But for some reason I woke up Sunday and packed our things and checked out of the hotel. The clerk didn't express alarm that I was a day early. We packed our car and then spent the day seeing sights. We tried to go to church and ended up in the foyer because the chapel was full. There were no speakers in the foyer and they never brought the sacrament out. Then we started driving to Las Vegas. I told Persephone to call and tell the hotel we'd be there late. They said, "You have no reservation for today." That was when we realized what had gone wrong that morning. They had no available rooms for Sunday night, and they would not refund our room rate for missing our Monday night stay because we were giving less than 24-hours' notice. We had nothing to do but just drive straight home. We arrived around 4 AM.
I was irate. The entire problem was a result of me making a mistake and not even realizing it was a mistake. The same thing happened in 1996 when I crashed my truck: I had pulled over to sleep, but then for some unknown reason I had awoken convinced I needed to leave right away or I would be late for something important. In reality, I had over 20 hours to complete the remaining five hours of my drive.
But by coming home from Utah Sunday night instead of Tuesday, I was home and available when my father called to tell me my older brother's family was having problems in Kansas and ask if I could fly out the next day to help.
By this time we had begun entertaining the idea of moving out of state soon than we had originally anticipated, so while I was in Kansas, Persephone looked on the Internet for job postings. She found one at a mapping company in Lawrence, Kansas, about an hour from my brother. I applied and called to see if I could interview while I was in the area.
I presented myself as "moving to Kansas," instead of "maybe moving to Kansas if I can find a job." The mapping company wanted to know when I would move. I wanted to know when I would be hired. Eventually they said they were going to hire two more employees after the start of the fiscal year in September, and that I would be one of them. Persephone and I decided I would move with our things at the end of August. She and our kids would stay in California until I was working.
I guess we were thinking that would keep our living expenses down, or that, if things didn't work out in Kansas, I'd move back. But then it kind of became obvious to us that we had already crossed that Rubicon, so they flew to Kansas on September 14th.
The mapping company said it would be October, not September. A man at church worked for a temporary agency and told me he could get me a job if I wanted something to do for a few weeks. I figured, "Sure, might as well make money while I'm waiting." I worked at a garage door factory. I ate water for two meals a day, helping reduce our grocery bill and helping me lose weight. Our entire family had to wake up at 5 AM to drive me to work. At least it was only for two weeks.
After four weeks at the garage door factory, the mapping company called up one day and told my wife (since I wasn't home) that they wouldn't be hiring anyone. They asked her to pass along the message. And they wished us luck. Which was nice.
The next week I got laid off from the garage door factory.
Just to point out how terrible 1997 was, 2005 was still not the worst year of my life.
Our retirement account had been exhausted. Our credit cards were approaching max-out (a collection of debt that lingers with us today). I took a job working at Triple-A.
In December, the mapping company called to tell me they were hiring me. I had reservations about working for a company that was so chaotic, but with very few alternatives, I took the job.
PS: Persephone just walked in and asked, "What are you typing about?" I said, "2005." She looked concerned. She said, "We've done a good job making it look like our life is awesome and then you go and ruin that by being, like, 'Here it is, people.'" She would like you to retain your initial (false) impression that our life is awesome. If you could do that, that would be great.
via oneofthebest
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