I moved around all the money I could possibly borrow off of my credit line and my Visa, and I have exactly $0.72 left in my account, but I managed to pay off that stupid, hateful CRA bill. Sans Becky Bloomwood closet assets.
I looked at the letter again and realised that there’s NO email whatsoever to contact, only phone numbers or site links for more “services and telephone numbers” and plus, they’ll charge me more interest if I dont pay by March 12, so I just fucking paid it.
And then I had to tell my dad (“OH, THE SHAME,” SHE INWARDLY GROANED AND CRINGED), because I have to borrow from him after all, to help pay off my student loan repayments.
Shoot me.
“Yoga breath, yoga breath,” she reminded herself brokenly, saddened by the fact that she could not even take out the trash because she was low on garbage bags and had no money to purchase more.
As it turns out (and not totally unexpectedly), the bank in France had also charged her extraordinary amounts of interest for having exceeded her credit limit the previous months (140 EUROS!?!?).
“But I needed to buy food!” she protested. “I’m not about to faint in front of my students!”
“I’m actually grateful for rice and pasta now,” she laughed derisively. “I guess the world is conspiring for me to eat less. Thank god for the 15 euros each week that feeds me. No, fuck it, there’s no god, “Thanks [name of student she tutors],” more like. I can’t wait for the cantine on Monday. I’m going to take lots of extra bread and extra fruit and take the fruit home with me afterwards.” Sometimes they even had little prepackaged biscuits or madeleines. “I’m taking those too, I paid for it, after all,” she realised indignantly. Now, to play some guitar and sing out the stress, a “luxury” that she considered a necessity and would rather sacrifice food funds for, than to give up.
“What the fuck, Facebook!” she yelled internally. “I started off my day shittily, do you have to let me down, too!?” she shrieked, when her panicked messages to her boyfriend failed to send.
She sighed. “I have one egg left, should I fry it and eat it as is, or make pancakes? Oh wait, I don’t have milk. Alright, should I make apple cake? It seems like more sustenance, I have some flour and sugar left, and the recipe requires just one egg…”
It was a sad turn of events indeed.
The optimist in her surveyed the situation and decided to romanticize her story. “All of Austen and Ibbotson’s heroines were poor, and spent their free time in the pursuit of knowledge, in helping others, or in roaming the countryside. Even Cassandra in “I Capture the Castle” was desperately poor, her family could afford one or two scant meals a day, and she spent her days scribbling with a stubby pencil in her cheap ruled notebooks from the village. If they can do it, so can I,” she reasoned, “for I have always wanted to be like them.” She had always related to them and hoped that she was as spirited and as capable of rising above adversity as they were, but she had sunk to new lows, for she was more alone in this than she had ever been before.
Despite everything weighing on her soul at the moment, she paused to look out the open window at the gathering clouds and smiled. “At least I am still capable of amusing myself,” she thought, while simultaneously contemplating the gathering of clouds in the sky as a sign of pathetic fallacy. That song in Kindergarten about Mr. Sun being your friend might have had some truth to it. And just like in all harsh realities, he leaves you when you’re down and out.
“Good, I hope it rains,” she concluded bitterly, yet without conviction. “I have no money to go out, anyways.”
*******
Self narration: It’s cheaper than self medication.
auds & ends 