So, true to my word, I went out and bought almost everything on the list that the lady that contacted me wanted. It was QUITE a long list of stuff - I set a monetary limit on the amount I was going to buy - but I went over anyway. What the hey, it's free money, I didn't really earn it. They are coming over in a couple of hours. I am going to do some BBQ'ing as they are bringing their whole family - 2 adults and 3 kids. Basically, their situation is having their own company. The lady used to work for the company and draw a good salary - the husband ran the business and drew and awesome salary.
Now, like millions of others like them, they are facing some very hard times. Their business is still in operation, but she is no longer on the payroll and they are barely eeking out enough to make the house payment and pay necessary bills. Well heck, I'm going to copy and paste the letter without revealing the names or phone number. It's a typical story that's going on all over the place.
Hello, My name is (deleted) and I am married for 13 years and have 3 children. I just happened to run across your ad during my search for work. I’m currently a stay at home mom with my 2 ½ year old daughter and my other 2 children are in school. They are 13 ½ and 9. I’m not writing to give you a sob story, but definitely could use some food right now. We are a family of 5 that was at one point at a high point in life and the money was coming in quite vigorously. My husband owns his own business cutting architectural shapes out of Styrofoam and works heavily with the stucco industry. The problem is the economy….our business is really suffering. We had a general manager that was running things and we had to let him go and we have one laborer and recently had to just cut his hours down significantly to an as needed basis. I was working with my husband, however he can’t afford to pay me any longer, so I’m basically working for free and just do20the bare minimum like invoicing for the time being. We can’t afford to put our daughter in care any longer now that I’m not getting paid. I’ve been working very hard at trying to find employment in the administrative industry because that is my background, but no good bites. So just recently I’ve been searching on CL for little gigs like house cleaning or laundry or anything domestic that I can do as a service with no money out of my pocket and be able to take my daughter with me. I’ve been successful with that this past week, but just had to buy new glasses for 2 of my kids and myself and so that shot down that extra money and now I have to find more work to save for my vehicle tags which are just over $400 due in June. Anyways, as I mentioned I didn’t want to write a sob story, but just giving you a little bit of information to go on…..we could really use good food because I’ve just been doing a whole lot of mac n’ cheese, hot dogs, PBJ’s and cereal. The family is getting burnt out on that quickly! I use coupons, but can’t afford to even use those, so I put a lot of time and effort in to find what I can for cents or free. Again, this has been a tremendous adjustment for us and we would sincerely appreciate a return favor from our community as we offer so much and have offered so much to our community both in volunteer work and just as good citizens20and normal everyday people trying to make a living and do some good in this world.
I look forward to hearing from you and take care,
That's their story. Now, to me, that's pure, red-blooded Americana. They have worked hard all their lives - and here we are. These are the kinds of people I want to help - which of course isn't that much or very often, but since I won a load of money (well it's a load to me, anyway), and I like to give back (I see doing things like this as my version of tithing to the Lord) - here we are.
As for the rest of that free money, I have paid numerous bills with it today and have a few more to go. Satellite; car; internet; credit-cards; still trying to access the car insurance site. It's down for whatever reason. Oh, and going to transfer $100 to my savings account and dump $100 on the power reader. That'll pretty much consume that money and then-some - but I just got paid and this paycheck is the one I use for paying household bills.
Today's fare for the BBQ? (changing the subject yet again)?
BBQ'ed chicken; salad; pork chops; mashed potatoes with gravy; coleslaw; potato salad - and probably not much else since it's unnecessary. Just that I'm also feeding 3 hungry boys as well (you know Caleb, Michael and JD?). They're going to be here before I know it, so I'm going to start cutting stuff for the salad. The rest of the stuff is a piece of cake - nothing to it - besides cooking chicken and chops on the BBQ - which I love doing anyway.
You? Take care, now!
ben
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Saturday
The ONLY reason I am awake right now is because of the dogs - sticking their snouts in my face while I was sleeping.
I got that wild hair last night and acted upon it. Yes sir, I went to the casino and raked up a tidy little sum of $700.00.
For 4 and a half hours, I was playing with house money, and boy was I playing! $50 bet here, $100 there. Double-down $100 for a $200 total bet here, etc etc etc. I undoubtedly could have won even more, but it got late and I started getting bored with it, actually.
Okay, I never get bored at the blackjack tables, but I was tired and that makes me feel bored, which is really my body telling me it's WAY past bed-time, pullllllleeeeeease go home and go to sleep. It felt REALLY good to walk out of there with that much of the house's money.
The funny thing is - management was standing there, glaring at me all night long. Everytime I looked up, they were standing there, a whole group of them at times, just staring at me. Now, admittedly I didn't start the affair out too well for their tastes. I hadn't been there 5 minutes and I objected to the dealer who bypassed me when I made a CLEAR signal to hit. I played strictly by the rules (blackjack rules for attempting to win, that is, not some house rules junk) last night, doubling down when I should have; doing everything that came to me that I should do when I should do it. The house actually paid everyone at the table back for that round. Then, someone else had a problem - a valid problem - with the dealer not paying him out for a winning hand.
The manager came up to the table and said: NOW what's the problem? looking at me as if I had just turned into the Bubonic plague - fortunately that problem was not initiated by me. I made no more fusses for the rest of the night, and the dealers were certainly doing some ridiculous blunders. I don't know how a person can be a dealer and simply ignore the player's wishes. Several of them continued to try and bypass me - thinking I wasn't going to hit on certain hands without bothering to ask my opinion of it.
Still, the thing kind of gave me a sour taste in my mouth just because of the pit boss and his cronies. I'm telling you, that pit boss was watching my every move. I started to wonder if they might have thought I was counting cards, a thing I have never learned how to do and undoubtedly would win FAR more money if I knew how to do it. I normally get along well with management, but last night - I just kept my mouth shut.
Okay, well, anyway, here it is, today. I decided to pay some of my winnings out to a needy family - a family of 5 that is, 2 adults and 3 boys - in giving them food. Yes, I am still doing Craigslist stuff here and there in giving out food when I can. Certainly, a winning like this will have me wanting to do something for someone. In this case, the lady of the house sent me a pretty extensive list of things she would like based on Fry's advertised sales. That will be $60 worth of food, maybe a tad more and then the rest is going to bills. Ummm, well maybe not ALL of it. I just remembered that material I was going to go buy today. The money spent on shade screen will be the money saved in cooling costs.
I am also thinking of buying 2 more new tires for my car - I STILL have that vibration problem that I just gave up on because I figured 2 more new tires would fix the problem, and at almost $200, I simply haven't really had the extra funds to go get them. Yes, in fact, I can think of a lot of ways to spend those winnings - on stuff I need - so, back off a little and give some time to think this out. I mean, clearly I should dump at least $100 in my online savings account.
Well, I will drive myself batty going on like that, so I'll just stop.
You know what? I'm still tired and I'm going to go back to bed!
Happy Day!
ben
I got that wild hair last night and acted upon it. Yes sir, I went to the casino and raked up a tidy little sum of $700.00.
For 4 and a half hours, I was playing with house money, and boy was I playing! $50 bet here, $100 there. Double-down $100 for a $200 total bet here, etc etc etc. I undoubtedly could have won even more, but it got late and I started getting bored with it, actually.
Okay, I never get bored at the blackjack tables, but I was tired and that makes me feel bored, which is really my body telling me it's WAY past bed-time, pullllllleeeeeease go home and go to sleep. It felt REALLY good to walk out of there with that much of the house's money.
The funny thing is - management was standing there, glaring at me all night long. Everytime I looked up, they were standing there, a whole group of them at times, just staring at me. Now, admittedly I didn't start the affair out too well for their tastes. I hadn't been there 5 minutes and I objected to the dealer who bypassed me when I made a CLEAR signal to hit. I played strictly by the rules (blackjack rules for attempting to win, that is, not some house rules junk) last night, doubling down when I should have; doing everything that came to me that I should do when I should do it. The house actually paid everyone at the table back for that round. Then, someone else had a problem - a valid problem - with the dealer not paying him out for a winning hand.
The manager came up to the table and said: NOW what's the problem? looking at me as if I had just turned into the Bubonic plague - fortunately that problem was not initiated by me. I made no more fusses for the rest of the night, and the dealers were certainly doing some ridiculous blunders. I don't know how a person can be a dealer and simply ignore the player's wishes. Several of them continued to try and bypass me - thinking I wasn't going to hit on certain hands without bothering to ask my opinion of it.
Still, the thing kind of gave me a sour taste in my mouth just because of the pit boss and his cronies. I'm telling you, that pit boss was watching my every move. I started to wonder if they might have thought I was counting cards, a thing I have never learned how to do and undoubtedly would win FAR more money if I knew how to do it. I normally get along well with management, but last night - I just kept my mouth shut.
Okay, well, anyway, here it is, today. I decided to pay some of my winnings out to a needy family - a family of 5 that is, 2 adults and 3 boys - in giving them food. Yes, I am still doing Craigslist stuff here and there in giving out food when I can. Certainly, a winning like this will have me wanting to do something for someone. In this case, the lady of the house sent me a pretty extensive list of things she would like based on Fry's advertised sales. That will be $60 worth of food, maybe a tad more and then the rest is going to bills. Ummm, well maybe not ALL of it. I just remembered that material I was going to go buy today. The money spent on shade screen will be the money saved in cooling costs.
I am also thinking of buying 2 more new tires for my car - I STILL have that vibration problem that I just gave up on because I figured 2 more new tires would fix the problem, and at almost $200, I simply haven't really had the extra funds to go get them. Yes, in fact, I can think of a lot of ways to spend those winnings - on stuff I need - so, back off a little and give some time to think this out. I mean, clearly I should dump at least $100 in my online savings account.
Well, I will drive myself batty going on like that, so I'll just stop.
You know what? I'm still tired and I'm going to go back to bed!
Happy Day!
ben
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)