Diminishing returns.

[zeroenthusiasm]

After two months of being completely lifeless, I somehow convinced myself to set a goal. The tenacity of the human spirit was a stubborn and illogical motherfucker. I still technically owned a car: the one Alyssa gave me when we first met, sitting in my aunt's driveway and being used as storage for the personal belongings I didn't bring with us. It just wasn't up to passing inspection, though, and would be an investment in and of itself to get it to: the last time I had it looked at, I was told it would cost at least a thousand dollars. Furthermore, the back interior didn't go flat with the seats pushed down, so I couldn't sleep inside of it, and it also didn't have the towing capacity to pull the camper, which was just sitting outside my brother's house a town over since I couldn't move it. I'd been living in a basement since the end of June, paying $250 a month for uncomfortable, subpar troll conditions. I figured if I ever wanted to escape the 518 again, the only way would be to invest what little money I had into getting the old car back on the road, so I could then get a job and save up for a another used car with the conditions I needed to live in it full-time. I knew the process would be long, arduous, expensive, and depressing, so I dragged my feet from one obstacle to the next--and obstacles, there were.

I hadn't touched my Trump check yet, just in case of an emergency, and sunk the whole thing into the car. First, I needed to replace the battery just to get it out of the driveway. The cheapest I could get was something like $65 from a nearby Autozone, and I was only able to get this done because Megan was in town and volunteered to help get me around for the day. I started driving the old car short distances, as needed--illegally, uninspected, unregistered, no plates at all. There were a myriad issues with the thing that had the Check Engine light on and made it legitimately unsafe to drive, but it was hard to care. Eventually, I knew I'd have to "officially" put that car back on the road. I brought it to a Mavis to be looked at, to get an estimate on what it would need done just to pass inspection. The estimate for what their shop could do, which wouldn't even be everything necessary, was over $1,400.

When the young girl at the register told me all of this, she chuckled and said, "Do you have money like that, my dude?"
I told her, "Oh, no, not at all. I've been thinking about robbing a convenience store."
There was some silence, probably because I didn't laugh and she knew I wasn't really fully kidding.
I explained, "I need to fix this car so I can get a job and save up for a new car. Or I'm just going to kill myself."

She looked back and forth and then told me to call her husband. She said he'd help me for hundreds of dollars cheaper, and I took her up on that offer and reached out later that day. I wished I had family to fall back on like everyone else I knew did. As always, I hoped I could rely on the kindness of strangers.

Meanwhile in therapy, he wanted to focus on me "reorienting" myself, since all that had happened since May 10th was an incredibly traumatic series of events and I was literally disoriented and existentially lost as a result. As I struggled just to figure out how to have a car again while she effortlessly lived her happy new life being taken care of by her new boyfriend, I was climbing through the wreckage she left in her wake. I had no idea what rebuilding would even look like for me at that point, because I had so little to work with, not to mention depleted energy. If I accomplished my goals, I was thinking I'd do some traveling by myself to see if I'd like making memories alone, and maybe wind up somewhere special in Wyoming where I would just remain isolated from the world like I already was but far more comfortably. It was so pathetic how difficult just being a goddamn hobo was for me. It was no wonder she abandoned me for some guy on the Internet who had a house and lots of money to play with.

I just wished she hadn't put so much effort into convincing me she didn't care about material things when one of the first things she did when she moved in with him was start shopping. I was so fucking exhausted with poverty. I couldn't stop thinking about selfish crimes I could commit to help myself, because the desperation and frustration was getting that bad. All I wanted was to be a transient in my old pop-up camper again and far away from the city. It was going to take me months and months to save up enough to buy a new car. The domino effect of misfortune and struggle that my ex set off had been devastating, all while her life had gotten exponentially better. She got to live in a big house and be showered with money and gifts, while also having a parent's house to go back to if that situation stopped working out. She had the car we once shared, in addition to the giant car her new boyfriend chauffeured her around in. All she had to do was be born into the right family and find a guy with money from the internet to have sex with. It seemed I needed to somehow win a lottery that I wasn't even playing in. I had no one I could ask for help. It would have been cheaper to buy a gun and shoot myself in the fucking head.

Anyway, it was a really good thing I saved the Trump check, because getting the car fixed wound up using every penny of it. The amateur mechanics who I let work on my car in their backyard not only wound up unable to fix everything I needed done, but still charged me $1,600--so less work done, for more money than Mavis had quoted me, despite the promise of the girl who sent me there. Another desperate gamble where I lost. I brought it to a real mechanic next, suggested to me by another mechanic, to replace the two pieces that I was told were causing my Check Engine light to still be on. It cost me $218, and that was with him using parts I brought to him. When I picked it up, he told me my axle boots were leaking grease, likely from getting nicked during the repairs I'd recently gotten done in those dudes' backyard. He showed me, and both sides were indeed coated in grease that was as thick as mud. He assured me I'd still pass inspection, though warned me that I needed to get the grease leak taken care of in a month or so or else I'd be in trouble. I asked him for an estimate for having that done and he said $500, because I'd have to have both axles completely replaced. When I got home, I looked up on YouTube if there were any simpler ways to fix the problem, and sure enough--and I know this mechanic guy must have already known this--one could clean all the grease off, find the pierced area, and seal it. That wouldn't be worth his time, though, would it?

I finally got pulled over, after over a month of driving short distances here and there in an unregistered car without plates or updated inspection. Thankfully, by this point I had already paid $220 for my first month of car insurance through Progressive, the cheapest provider I could find with my past accidents. For the first time in my life, I sucked a cop's dick (figuratively) and showed him feigned friendliness and respect. It hurt me to do it, but I could not afford to lose anymore money. I didn't bring my phone, so I couldn't show him proof of insurance, but I brought up the pandemic, which I'd read had police not going through with petty crimes like these, and told him I had my scheduled registration date at the DMV for the soonest they had available. When he came back, he told me he believed me and was "cutting me a break": he was supposed to be having my car impounded right then and there, he said, but instead “only” wrote me a ticket for driving without registration or inspection, even though he was a cop who could have just as easily let me go without any tickets at all. He told me I'd be fine if I got registration and inspection before I went to the court and pleaded not guilty. Since court rooms weren't really open during the pandemic, the only option they offered was slipping it into a cheap mailbox affixed outside their locked door.

The next day, I finally got it inspected, at a place specifically suggested to me by the backyard mechanics. They told me the place passed everyone as long as their engine light wasn't on. I sat in the waiting room since I couldn't go anywhere else, visibly defeated, sleep-deprived, and filthy. When the guy came out, he sat down next to me and told me, "It didn't pass." He said it like he was a doctor telling me a relative had died. Even with my natural pessimism, I was genuinely surprised. I asked him why it didn't and he told it was because of the grease leak that I had just been assured by another mechanic would not prevent it from passing. He told me if ignored long enough, the grease would run out, dry up, and eventually the axles could snap while I was driving, leaving my steering wheel powerless. That sounded scary and all, but that was my business! He started asking me questions and I didn't waste any time over-sharing about my predicament. I told him I was scheduled to get it registered the following Friday, but now wasn't going to since I couldn't afford to put anymore money into it. I told him I needed to fix the car so I could get a delivery job and save up for a new one. Somehow, he asked me enough personal questions that I ended up telling him the whole sordid tale. After I got it all out, I looked at him and said, "She really fucked up my whole life."

He could probably tell I was about to cry. That's when he said, "Listen, I'm not gonna charge you anything today, and I'm gonna pass ya. But you do have to get that grease leak fixed. Whenever you save up $400, bring it to me and I'll do it."
I asked him, "Really?!" several times and then shook his hand.
He kept saying, "I'm not that guy," adding, "I own this place. I can pass ya."
Finally, someone who used their authority to help instead of punish. But when he came back, he had more bad news: the machine wouldn't let him pass me because my car's computer hadn't restarted since the codes were last cleared, or something like that. Since he wasn't able to fully pass me, he instead gave me a temporary 10-day pass, and I appreciated that he still found a way to help. He told me to drive it a little more on the highway and bring it back, and that after a certain amount of mileage, the computer would automatically restart. His name was Mike and I thanked him profusely for taking pity on me. Due to the pandemic, the DMV was seeing people in person by appointment only, and it was hard to get a date that wasn't in the distant future. I was hoping nothing else unexpectedly got in the way of me getting it re-registered, but at that point was open to anything terrible happening. I drove it all weekend, and then brought it back for a second inspection, which he did pass, as promised.

I would have to wait until I had $400 again so I could get the grease leak fixed, and hoped it would survive long enough that I'd get a new car before having to do that. By that point, I'd already spent $1,600 on the backyard mechanics, $218 at a second legitimate mechanic, $220 to activate my insurance, $88 for registration, and whatever I'd owe the cop who ticketed me.

I had to save up enough money to begin to be able to save up money, what a fucking joke. It was so exasperating. Being poor and lacking familial support at that point really honestly had me considering robbing places, sucking dick, and doing evil shit. One night, my brother said to me, "I wish we had a parent." I felt that every day. Few people realized the profound ways just having even one reliable, caring parent helped. Without parents, I would always be one misstep away from actual homelessness, because I would never have a parent's house to go back to. I would never have that one person in my life who I could reliably ask for some extra cash when in a bind. I would never have, and never had, that parental guidance that would have prepared me for adulthood and helped me along the way. As I walked the tightrope of poverty, I didn't have this safety net that everyone else seemed to, while most of them didn't even notice it was there because it’d always had been. I actually took a chance and texted my father, asking him if he had any under-the-table jobs, even doing illegal things, that he could hook me up with. He was just as useless as he always was, though.


The day the damn car finally passed inspection, I drove straight to the Chinese restaurant and asked for a job. He was happy to see me and said he'd call, and did so the next day to see if I could come in right away. So at the end of September, I started working as many hours as they would give me, five days a week. It was the only job off the books I could find, and I went home with over a hundred bucks in cash almost every single night. Due to COVID, their side of the restaurant was completely walled up, with a DIY sliding drawer they transferred food to customers through. We were given walkie-talkies, which they'd send a ring to whenever there was an order, so we were usually just hanging out in our cars. The first day was hard, it being so painfully familiar and not having her to text throughout the day, or to come back home to each night, but I very quickly got into a groove and, as far as jobs went, I mostly enjoyed it. I never thought I'd utter such words, but having a job was good for me at the time. I was completely focused on the goal, and with what I was being paid, I figured I'd meet it before the end of the year.

It was also just keeping me disciplined, which I desperately needed, considering how difficult it was to keep grip on the sense that anything at all was worth doing. Being on a schedule for five days of the week gave me a reason to wake up and experience sunlight for the first time in three months. It reminded me to take my meds and brush my teeth. It helped me keep to a consistent pattern of intermittent fasting, usually eating a single meal of some tofu and broccoli paid for with my 30% discount. I didn't work on Wednesdays so I could go to therapy once a week, so I even had a reason to wake up on one of my days off.

Driving around for four or five hours a day, delivering usually around 20-30 orders, just listening to music, I was somewhere else entirely. I didn't know where I went inside, and I didn't care to know, but I was on total autopilot, hollow and fueled solely by anxious adrenaline and cortisol. I was glad to have something to do that kept me distracted. I had minimal interaction with other human beings and I had to wear a mask which allowed me plausible deniability if I ever saw someone who might recognize me. Our clientele was split between the poor 'hood I lived in, and the upscale suburbs and hidden housing developments. Virtually everyone tipped, and usually very well. I would have worked more hours if I’d been given the opportunity.

I was still checking Craigslist every day for any side jobs. I was off of soda more often than not. I was still learning Spanish on Duolingo. I had a nonstop game of Words with Friends going on with my high school guidance counselor. I hung out with my brother a couple times a week and had at least two people from far away who I texted with regularly. I felt safe, for the most part. I was trying to take stock of the things I was doing that were "good" for me, although I still recognized that my life was over and the world was ending. Again, I was trying to "reorient" myself like we'd discussed in therapy. While I in some ways had technically done that, it was still more like clinging onto a tree during a tornado. This was all just to get through the storm, before I'd start wading through the rubble again. It probably helped that I had maxed out the dosages of both my medications: up to 450mg of bupropion and 50mg of citalopram.

One day at work, I had just pulled up outside the Chinese place to wait for the next delivery. Next thing I knew, a cop was behind me, flashing their lights. When he came up, I asked him, "Sorry, you want me to move?" It was technically a No Parking zone right outside the shop, and they would randomly bother us for idling in it every now and then, depending on who the cop was and just how bored they must have been. But no, he wanted to talk about the fact that I didn't have license plates on my car. I'd had plates for almost three weeks at that point, I just kept forgetting to get screws so I could put them on, and with each day not getting pulled over about it, it became further deprioritized. I also just liked the security of not having a back plate. Besides, I still had one plate in the front window, and my second plate was sitting right in my passenger seat. I thought that would suffice for the time being, but he gleefully told me it wouldn't. I showed him I physically had both plates in my possession. My car was registered, inspected, and insured. I was uncomfortably cordial again.

After the usual long wait for him to come back with my ID, the asshole still ticketed me for not having plates and once again propped himself up as the good guy who was cutting me a break. He made sure to point out that he could technically write me more tickets, for having an outdated address on my license and being parked in a fire zone. Again, if he was such a nice guy cutting me a break, he could have just not written me a ticket at all. It was very annoying. I marked myself Not Guilty and dropped it in the mailbox again, hoping both would just get thrown out or lost amongst their backed-up mid-pandemic paperwork. I immediately went next door to Autozone and shoplifted screws. I wished so badly I could fully opt out of the system. I was so sick of asking the state for permission to drive my fucking car.

In my first month of working deliveries, I made back what I'd spent on the car, and then some. I was feeling pretty good about it, though living in poverty had trained me to never get too comfortable. Being poor meant always preparing for the next obstacle, the next unforeseen expense; it was nonstop crisis mode, knowing that any commonplace bit of misfortune here or there could be enough to set me back to zero, if not deep into the negatives. It was a real learning experience, answering the age-old question of, 'Why don't poor people save their money?' Well, when you're poor, there's very little room to save to begin with, and what little you are able to put away can be taken away by a single unforeseen event. For me, vehicles just kept costing me, but I ironically needed one in order to make and save money. I had put off learning how to drive or owning a car until I was in my late-20s because, as I always said, "Even if I got a car for free, I wouldn't be able to afford to keep it." Well, I got a car for free and learned I was totally right.

Still, by mid-November, I had accumulated over $4,000, and I had begun the soul-crushing process of scouring the Internet for cheap used cars that I could buy right away. They would all inevitably cost me as much as a new car in the long-run with all the repairs that old, used cars wound up requiring just to keep running. Unfortunately, when you are poor, you just don’t ever have that total amount of money all at once, and have to settle for the financially draining option of instant gratification. It was moments like those that I thought obsessively about how most of my peers' first cars were given to them by their parents when they were only teenagers. I thought back to the previous Thanksgiving when the woman I was living with took her college freshmen daughter out to buy a brand new car, for no reason in particular other than knowing she wanted and needed a new car. It was hard to not let the reality that I was working twice as hard to get half as far completely defeat me, and it might have had I not come across what seemed to be the perfect vehicle for me on Facebook Market so soon.

It was a silver Hyundai Santa Fe, the 2005 model of the same car that Alyssa and I had lived in together. Being somewhat familiar with it already, I at least knew some important things, such as its towing capacity being strong enough to pull the pop-up camper, and the back being spacious enough for sleeping in with the seats flattened down. It was going for only $2,200, which was significantly below my maximum budget of $3,500, and I figured it had been well taken care of since the young girl who was selling it was a rich girl who claimed she was only getting rid of it because she'd gotten a good deal on a loan for a newer one. When I went to go check it out and take it on a test drive, she was outside with her boyfriend in front of a huge house in a Gansevoort cul-de-sac. I asked a lot of questions and immediately checked little things right away, such as inspecting for rust underneath it and whether or not the heat and AC worked, making sure the Check Engine light wasn't on. The only rust was a small patch on the outside of the wheel well, and both the heat and AC came on pretty quick. The Check Engine light wasn't on, and it had just recently passed inspection, which was a good sign. It only had 131,600 miles on it, which for a poor person was considered relatively low-mileage for a used car, at least from what I'd seen within my price range.

They joined me for the test drive, where I instantly noticed the rough feel of it. Braking caused the steering wheel to shake and rumble, and its alignment was severely off. I considered these things worthy investments with how cheap I was getting the thing. I paid them in cash and drove it back home without license plates, parking it around the corner from my house since I didn't have anywhere else to put it for the time being.

I got the car. I really did it. I even had some money to spare afterwards. Of course, it wouldn't be that easy, but phase one of two had been successfully completed.







… It seemed like I never stopped paying for it, though. I took it to get looked at and received a long list of shit that urgently needed fixing just to make it safe to drive. It took them two and a half hours to come out and tell me this, and say they'd call me the next day with an estimate. Well, they never called, so I brought it to another small, local place I'd gone to before, and while his diagnosis echoed the last mechanic’s, he was able to immediately start working on it. I had to get new tires, new brake pads, new rotors, an oil change, and an alignment. After, it'd be as good as new, it was claimed. It cost a whopping $1,200. Since I knew emergencies were inevitable, and that without Alyssa I wouldn't have anyone or their family to ask for help during one, I finally got a AAA card, the best subscription of which cost an annual $150 upfront. Switching cars on my insurance seemed to bring my monthly cost down below $200, but it was still uncomfortably close to it. The following Tuesday, titling and registration cost me $245.

While still waiting for my appointment with the DMV two weeks later, I came back from work one night to find it missing. I had to assume it had gotten towed or stolen--there wasn't much of a difference between the two, either way. I called the police and confirmed that it had been towed for being illegally parked without plates or anything. The next day when I got it from the tow place, I was extorted by them for $313. I couldn't stand there and ask for my car back without talking some shit to them, though. Unless you were lucky enough to be the one who called them for assistance, their job was to literally steal your property and then hold it ransom for an exorbitant sum. They knew this, and that was why the man immediately started yelling and swearing when I told him to his face what him and his company did to people like me. All it took was asking, "So how much are you extorting me for?" and saying they worked in cahoots with the police. He got so mad, in fact, he almost let me leave with my car without paying just to hurry me up out of there, as his co-worker held him back from jumping through the Plexiglas window at me. He came to his senses about not robbing me, though, and in the end, they of course won, as they took from me in one minute what took me several days to make at work; at least fifteen hours of work for me and fifteen minutes of work for them. After dealing with them, I then had the pleasure of paying the $75 ticket left by cops.

A week later, I'd pay $350 to modify the car at a UHaul so it could hitch on and electrically connect to the camper. Then it was $60 on another used rooftop cargo carrier off of Facebook Market. Suddenly, I was then paying $354 to repair my back brakes, and another $700 to fix a severe exhaust leak and replace my entire muffler which was apparently covered in holes.

I had to keep putting off my departure date because life just wouldn't let up, no matter how much or hard I worked. Leaving in December turned into leaving in January. I wanted to put away at least $3,000, but it kept being taken from me. I worked on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and New Years, and during our biggest snowstorm when I literally had to spend an hour trying to shovel my car out from under a mountain of snow. Around the same time, I'd taken up a job offered by my friend Abby to sit for her home and a roomful of small rodent critters awaiting adoption, which wound up being far more overwhelming and troublesome than I anticipated. I figured it'd be nice to spend the otherwise depressing and lonely holidays with a whole house to myself, surrounded by cute critters and getting paid $300 to do it, but it was actually a lot of fucking work and Abby was incredibly aggressive and disrespectful to me the entire time.

Her and her friend Sarah from Connecticut had founded Protectors of Paws and Claws, their own non-profit vegan adoption agency for animals who were typically more difficult to find homes for, such as the stigmatized, the little guys, and the traumatized. They were both wonderful people doing amazing work, and they had very compassionate, unprecedentedly high standards for animal care, most of which had not been thoroughly or clearly communicated to me beforehand, nor on the handwritten list of directions that were left for me when I got there. They were dedicated to providing animal companions with the enriching domestic lives they all deserved but were oftentimes deprived of even by the most thoughtful of human guardians. I had sat for many different animals over the years, including various rodents, but not even I was as familiar with or prepared for the level of care and enrichment they expected me to provide them. After adopting out some baby rats and gerbils to two adorable families who drove from far away to get them, I spent every day taking care of two cats, one mouse, two adult rats, two baby boy rats, and I think eight or so gerbils. They all lived together in separate homes built for them inside of large containers or tanks in an extra bedroom, and their routines and requirements, I'd gradually discover, would need me there basically all day.

When I told Abby that I was still working for the Chinese place in Schenectady, she didn't take it well, and didn't seem to care or empathize with my situation of needing as much money as I could make in a short period of time. It was also hard to not feel like she had very specific expectations in me that were based on the idea that I was just such a big loser with no life that I could be available 24/7 for two entire weeks and able to run new errands on a moment's notice. I almost couldn't blame her for having those expectations, but I could have let her know what I was capable of had she been more clear and detailed about what she'd be needing from me.

Leading up to those two weeks, Abby kept canceling plans with me to meet up at her place so she could show me everything that needed to be done in person. It ended up with her asking me if I could come the morning she was scheduled to leave town at 9:30, but she texted me this while I was already asleep at 3 in the morning. I didn't wake up until I had to go to work, so by the time I saw her text, I wasn't able to come over. She also told me last-minute that a family was coming to pick up some baby rats at 3:30 and she needed someone to be there to hand them off. I ended up having to leave work early so I could do it. She left me with a few videos she'd texted me showing me some things, and told me she'd left a list on the table. I noticed right away that this list did not include the feeding schedule for the rodents. Not off to a good start.

Her text messages and calls were nonstop from that point forward. I'd get asked about her two cats several times a day, needing updates on when and if they had eaten and how much. I was told to play with them for a certain number of hours, no matter how many times I told her Cali wanted to sleep and Momo hated me. I'd repeatedly be asked to run errands for her, all of which were communicated to me like she'd forgotten to do them herself and I was her only hope. For example, I had to collect some things scattered around her home that she'd sold on eBay, then weigh, package, and mail them out, but she had to help me find every piece of the package all the way down to the envelope and tape since her house was such a mess. I didn't get to it fast enough and she threw a fit because the delivery was officially late and she didn't want it to impact her account rating. Then it was FaceTiming her while I opened up a Christmas present she'd gotten in the mail, pick up a big bag of sand from Home Depot, pick up a big bag of coconut fiber from PetSmart, put all of the rats' blankets and sheets in the laundry, go grocery shopping for the animals, run her car for a little while so it wouldn't freeze, check the rats for bugs, do a deep clean so her house "looks like an HGTV scene"...

She wanted me to get decent pictures of the frequently elusive and hidden rodents so she could post them for potential adopters to see, too, which she for some reason hadn't done already. In retrospect, it was probably her way of spying on me and ensuring I did everything she wanted me to, since she made it very clear that she didn't necessarily trust me--not because I was an untrustworthy person, but because she truly thought I was an idiot. I knew this because she repeatedly would call me one while getting loudly impatient with me, as I tried to figure out chores she'd just thrown on me in the moment regarding aspects of the house and animals she had never made clear to me. It was not fun being spoken to this way by yet another woman, but I just let it slide for the most part, attempted to kill her with kindness, and responded with a lot of, "Okie doke," texts even when I knew I wouldn't do what she was telling me to do.

There was a moment where I considered quitting, more so because of how Abby spoke to and treated me than the surprising amount of extra work I had being dumped on me. One day, I hadn't gotten back to one of her incessant series of texts because I had slept in a little. I told her I hadn't gotten much sleep the night before because of all I had to do after leaving my other job.
She responded, "Try to get up earlier maybe?"
I said, "Then I wouldn't get any sleep at all."
She responded, "Go to bed earlier then"
I angrily said back, "I would have, but had to do all that shit you wanted me to after I got back from work."
She fired back, "Yeah that's why we paid you to stay there" with an upside-down smiling emoji.
That was when I said, "Had I known all of the details, I wouldn't have said yes."
She wasted no time responding, "Okay we can ask someone else."
It was just becoming more and more painfully clear how little she valued me or my time, and I didn't like suddenly being treated like a fucking robot maid who didn’t need the same things as all other humans. She was a rich girl, and just couldn't relate at all to someone not being able to stay at home all day and have all the time in the world for these animals of hers. I also had my doubts that she actually did all these things she was demanding I do, considering how many times she didn't know where things were, and I had to retrieve the big sandbox from downstairs in the garage for the gerbils to play in. Sarah was nice to me, though, and I knew I desperately needed the $300.

It was at this point that I decided I would do what I could, but would otherwise lie to her about anything I hadn't done, because she was making unreasonable requests and hadn't properly prepared me for anything. I knew none of the animals were at risk just because I didn't forcibly remove them from the comfort of their tanks as they ran and hid from my scary, unfamiliar hands, and then insist they have a play time with me. She said they were sick or dead if they didn't want to run on their wheel or come out to play. They were all getting fed, they were all staying hydrated, and they were all getting rest. I was big on consent with non-human animals, and didn't want to force them to do anything they didn't want to. Anything else was redundant. Honestly, I didn't think for one second she'd find someone else to do this shit, either, let alone put up with her attitude while doing it.

Cali was one of the prettiest and sweetest cats I'd ever met, but Momo was on Prozac and had never really liked me. I had babysat these two before. Resting on the couch with Dash the mama rat and watching Dawson's Creek with her was my favorite part. The naked gramma rat she lived with wasn't very friendly, and bit me really bad one night after several nights surprising Abby and Sarah by letting me put my hand in the cage without attacking. I made them big salads of greens, tofu, and baby food, and they really loved mixed dry fruit and canned pumpkin. Rats were one of my favorite animals, and had I lived a life more stable and suitable for a companion animal, I probably would have offered to adopt the two baby boy rats who started growing up very quickly right before my eyes as I'd take them out every evening to crawl around and play in the bathtub. The gerbils were a mixed bag of varying sociability, but they were fun and funny little critters. They were the most difficult, because Abby wanted me to give them all their own individual hour or two of enrichment and recreation, playing with them hands-on every time. It was sometimes hard to even find them at first, burrowed and buried in their tanks of mixed bedding material. I absolutely loved Stanley, the little mouse who kept breaking his wheel that he ran at lightspeed on while remaining undeterred from spinning in circles. One night, I saved a tiny wild mouse from being killed by Cali and Momo, too.

My final day there, I tried to do a "deep clean", as requested, but wound up scaling back what I wanted to, mostly because there was just so much junk I didn't know what to do with. I swept, did the dishes, put most away unless I didn't know where they went, took out the trash, vacuumed the rodent room a second time, completely cleaned out and changed the baby rats' home, and made sure everyone's waters were full and that oxbow wasn't covering anything in their cages. After I locked the doors and left her key hanging up inside, I realized I forgot to grab my bag of stuff on the way out. I wouldn't be able to get it until I got off work later that night. When she got back home, she said I could come pick my stuff up, and even had the nerve to ask me to bring her food from my job.

Before I got there, I received a string of texts saying, "It's like disgusting in here. I'm still cleaning the cages. Like I will honestly be shocked if no one dies."
I was so taken aback by how ridiculous this was that I actually responded, "I don't know if you're fucking with me or not!"
… She was not.
She sent me three pictures of Stanley's tank, where some poops were at the bottom of a bridge of his and she had discovered some visibly old traces of mold on a popsicle stick platform that was underneath one of his water bowls. I told her I had done everything she had asked me to, and she yelled at me on the phone, saying that it should have been obvious to inspect the cages for mold and to change the entire bedding of each tank every day or so, and that I should have just known what to do because I was a vegan. I tried to remain calm but stand up to her, but as she became louder and meaner and proceeded to insult my intelligence with name-calling, I decided to just hang up. I refused to be spoken to that way anymore.

I sent her a text...
I'm sorry for hanging up, I just can't handle being yelled at by anyone right now. I did everything you told me to do, exactly how you told me to do it and when to do it. I'm sorry I did not do anything you did not tell me to do, but you can't fault me for that. It's not as though obvious things like changing their water weren't explicitly emphasized to me, so no, I had no reason to expect you to leave more obvious things out. I assumed that if you wanted their entire bedding situation changed, it would have been written down on the paper or sent in the revised list texted to me the other night.

I completely changed the adult rat cage on Sunday in all the ways you told me to. I did not expect to have to change it again before I left. I also completely changed and washed down the baby rats' cage last night. I'm sorry I didn't see any mold, let alone on the houses or whatever; I had no reason to expect mold nor thought I'd have to look for it.

As I've repeated over and over, no one in my entire life that I have experienced or sat for has been as meticulous as you are, so it went beyond any past experience I've ever had, so no, not everything that is "common sense" to you is going to be common sense to me.

I took orders as they were given to me because I figured you knew best, and also because I was afraid I'd somehow do something wrong and you'd talk to me the way you just were on the phone again--which I guess didn't work, because it still wound up that way. I'm sorry I let you down, but I'm not going to take full responsibility for it because I literally did everything I was told to do by you, and I remained dedicated and flexible despite how disrespectful you were to me and how continuously more chores were sent to me due to a total lack of preparation on your end. For what it's worth, now they are back in your care and they will be taken care of exactly the way you envisioned but did not ever fully communicate to me.

I did my best for you, and I'm truly sorry that it still was not good enough. I hope you'll still like me as a person.
I'd never get a response of any kind, and I certainly didn't get an apology.





















































All the animals I babysat.

When I first met Alyssa, I was already in the process of trying to save up to buy a car, while at the same time she was in the market for a new one. One night, she offered me hers: a 2004 Honda CR-V her grandmother gave her--totally for free, no questions asked, just like she had received it. We barely knew each other yet, but I was in no position to reject such a huge offer. It significantly changed my life to suddenly own a car, and I was so grateful for it. I'd still wind up spending thousands of dollars on it afterwards, of course. This kind gesture would later be used as a means of belittling me behind my back, just as I feared it would when I first reluctantly accepted it in 2018. I hated feeling like I was still relying on her as I continued to drive it. Before I left town for good, I drove it downtown to the scrapyard to have it recycled. I got $300 for it, plus the catharsis of removing my final connection to her. I wish I could have watched it get crushed, preferably with her inside of it. It felt like the end of a chapter, though I was still scared and/or uninterested in turning the page.

Two days before I was set to finally leave town for good, I mentioned in passing to my brother that I was going to get the camper, which as far as I knew had been sitting outside his house the entire time. That was when he called me and said, "Oh, shit, I totally forgot to tell you something: your camper's gone." It was pretty fucking annoying for him to forget something like that. After calling the police in the area, I was told it had been towed on December 18th because of a snowstorm emergency. I guess everyone was expected to not just be prepared to remove their cars from the street, but to also have somewhere else to park them to begin with. If they didn't, it only made sense to penalize them, and in my case have my property stolen by a private business again. It was another way to fine the poor. The owner of the tow company generously showed me some "mercy", knocking off close to $500, charging me “only”... $1,000. He then bored me with obnoxious platitudes about how, "the big guy upstairs never throws us more than we can handle," and, "some people don't even have a camper, they just have a box." It was devastating. I probably made close to $8,000 in untaxed cash during the time I spent working and trying to save. In the end, I somehow was leaving town with only $2,000, because life really was a fucking joke and hard work really didn't mean shit if you weren't already born into some luck. I considered staying another month just to work more and make it all back, but knew I needed to leave then or I never would.

I no longer had anything tying me to Schenectady. My brother had already left town, and no one else I considered a friend in town had even bothered to reach out to me to see if I was still alive after disappearing from social media. I was permanently blacklisted from my own area code because of my cancellations, so I couldn't do what I loved doing there ever again. I wasn't dating anyone. It was bittersweet to really realize how little I had left in the place I was born and raised. I was very antsy to leave, but also incredibly anxious. As much as I knew it was the right next move for me, it was also really my only option other than continuing to live a life of basement exile, which I no longer wanted to do. Leaving meant officially turning my back on who I once was and once lived for, I felt, while driving directly into the guardrail of total uncertainty and aimlessness, wrapping myself around the tree of radical acceptance. Taking the final steps toward this new life didn't just feel like a chapter ending, it felt like a kind of death.

I wasn't necessarily ready for it, but I also couldn't endure staying where I'd been since June. This was a life composed of lose-lose situations, though; options that just had me trying to figure out which form of pain and discomfort was most tolerable. I did not know where I would be by the end of January. If I was being completely honest with myself, I was terrified of the future, especially facing it all alone. As the world continued to burn all around me, it was impossible to plan more than I already had, especially with my limited resources. All I knew for sure was that, wherever I wound up, it had to be warm. At least with the camper, I could have stable shelter while still being able to move on a whim, and I wouldn't have to pay anyone rent; for once, my living space would be truly mine, and no one could really take it away or use my presence in it against me. This was the best case scenario for me for the moment, it seemed. Maybe in time I would start writing again, both words and music, or drawing. Maybe I'd even return to social media. I didn't want to get too far ahead of myself, though.

I wish I could say I did much of anything else during my seven months off of social media and isolated from society, but I didn't. I learned some Spanish, I delivered Chinese food, and I tried to heal. I still hadn't healed, and all I had to show for myself was a 16-year-old car and the camper. I christened it with some straightedge veganarchy decals and threw all of my belongings into them. My life was still, for all intents and purposes, over. It seemed the only passion of my mine left that I could practice without someone taking it from me was, as always, travel. At least, no one could cancel me from it. Cancel culture didn't yet impact your status down at the DMV... yet. My car could die at any moment, and I still had to appease every arbitrary hoop the state forced me to jump through just to be able to drive the thing, so there was actually plenty that could go wrong to take it all away from me, but the people who had thus far destroyed my reputation and life, and prevented me from doing the things I loved most, were at least incapable of impounding my car.

All loose ends had been tied up and I was ready to go. I left on the 8th and started heading southbound. I had plans to meet up with my ex in North Carolina again, but otherwise wasn't sure what I was doing or where I was going. I honestly still didn't know, but I knew it would have to be alone. Could I salvage some joy out of this life anymore? I'd have to try and see...



A nod from the universe in the junk lot?





The last tie to Alyssa, set for obliteration.



My new home.