My bright is too slight to hold back all my dark.

I finally broke down last night. After months of frustration, anger, and hopelessness, I sobbed until my pillow was soaked.

I'm so sick of this job, and living paycheck to paycheck. We have $32 to our name right now. $32.

We have another paycheck on Monday, and then another 2 on Friday. But it's not going to make this any better. Because every last dime of it will be spent on rent, loans, and utilities. Then, we might have a little left over for groceries, if we clip coupons and eat spaghetti at least twice a week.

And then by this time next month, I'll probably be sobbing into my pillow again, worried about the bills, blaming myself for not being able to find a better paying, or at least a full-time, job. It's a bit ridiculous really. And after breaking down last night, I've moved on to being incredibly angry about it.

I have a mother-loving Masters degree. I have bled and cried to put myself through school, earn top grades, be involved, and work 3 jobs. And all I have to show for it is a part-time teaching job that pays shittier than my part-time KMart job. And it finally came crashing down last night.

I don't want to have to live like this, choosing between being late for a loan payment or buying groceries. Having to ask myself before I bake something, "Can I afford to replace the flour I'll use?" Before I drive to visit my parents, "Will I use too much gas so that I won't be able to drive to work on Monday and I can't get gas until after payday next week?"

When I turn the lights on at night, I wonder if I could stand the dark just a little bit more, if it meant keeping the electric bill down. Or if we couldn't keep the house just a degree or two cooler, when we're already walking around with sweaters and two pairs of socks on, cuddling under blankets.

I'm on the verge of losing it, for real. My husband hasn't gone to the eye doctor in almost 4 years, his glasses are permantly scratched and he can hardly see through them. I haven't been in 2 years. We haven't been to the dentist in at least 3, and we both need a thorough checkup, but we can't even afford our insurance's copays. If anything serious were to happen, we'd be screwed.

We're waiting for our internet contract to run out, so we can cancel it. As soon as we can get all the numbers changed, we're cancelling the landline. We're hoping for cash for our upcoming birthdays so we can pay off the credit cards we've had to use to buy necessities or gas when we've run out of cash.

I'm ready to cancel anything that is not imperative: internet, Dish, landline. I've even considered not renewing our cell phone contract and buying a pay-as-you-go phone. No one ever calls me anyway. I walk to work (at KMart) when it's freezing rain and below zero outside, so I don't have to use gas.

I've watched all these shows about being in debt and cutting back, and honestly, I envy those people. There's people on there who have more cars than drivers in their house, who go out to eat 3 or 4 times a week, who have shopping problems and can't control their spending, who have to cut their number of hair appointments from every 2 weeks to every 4.

I haven't even gotten my hair cut in almost a year, because I can't justify spending $20 which would pay for my dog's food for a month.

We have cut almost as much as we can, and we're still drowning. The natural solution, to me, would be to make more. Find a higher paying job. Full-time would be higher-paying for me, at this point. But how? I've tried. I counted today, I have about 20-25 resumes saved on my computer, all ones that have been sent out in the last 6 months. How many interviews have I gotten? Two. Maybe three.

And all places, except KMart, have hired people with less qualifications and less experience than me. All the other places may not have even looked at my resume. For all I know, it went straight into the recycle bin. I've called to follow up, I've sent thank-you notes to interviewers, I've tried to hand in my resume in person as often as possible. Nothing.

I'm still sitting here, drowning in bills, powerless to change anything.

And now I'm really wondering why. I said in an earlier post that I believe God always has a plan. That I'm always where I'm meant to be, I just don't find out until later why. But it's later. And now would be a good time for the Man Upstairs to enlighten me, because I'm really losing hope.

One of my many (and admittedly, stupid) pet peeves.

I have to sound off for just a brief moment about something completely unrelated to my glamorous job.

If you are a woman, and you drive around a Ford Explorer, or a Suburban, or any other form of gas-guzzling, ozone-destroying SUV, you ARE NOT, I repeat, you ARE NOT, driving a truck. Understanding this, you should never put a sticker on your vehicle that says, "Silly boys. Trucks are for girls." Regardless of whether or not that is a valid statement, you have no business putting that on your NOT-TRUCK.

Stickers like that are reserved for the bad-ass females who drive around a hoss of truck bigger and louder than any man's. They are not for your soccer mobile.

Sweet dreams are made of these.

Two little bits of awesome from the 'mart today:

1. Regional managers are coming in on Friday. Thank heavens I don't have to work tomorrow or Friday, which means I'm not going to be either a) running around like mad trying to detail, straighten, and clean anything I can find, or b) worried about being on my best behavior. Alas, it did mean that I spent at least half of my shift on checkout today scrubbing grime off the floor, polishing the sign holders in the foyer, dusting the candy and toy machines, and wiping down all surfaces I could reasonably do while not getting too far away from my register.

2. I was walking from the service desk to my register to pull my money for the girl coming in after me (it's about 3:27, I was supposed to be off at 3:30) and what should happen? Complete power outage. Which meant, of course, that all registers went down. They can only be brought up 2 at a time, in a specific order. Thank god mine was the second to go up. But then my screen froze. So I had to reboot it twice. Then I had to wait for all the other registers to go up before it was time to reboot the sporting goods register, where the time clock was, on which I had to punch out. I left at 4 PM. (So, an extra 30 minutes? During a week when my hours were drastically cut, I'm not going to complain. It was more of a pain in the butt than anything.)

Now I'm at home, waiting for my hubby to get here so we can spend some quality time together this evening. And by quality, I mean peanut butter cups, sweet tea, and bad t.v.

The stuff dreams are made of. :)

Urine Good Company

A woman came to the layaway counter yesterday, reeking of cat urine. It took me awhile to place it, but after a minute, I realized it was, indeed, the distinctive odor of old cat urine. She proceeded to put a fry daddy, 2 packages of underwear, 1 pair of pants, and a STACK of at least 15-20 magazines on layaway.

It was all a bit . . . unsettling.

I'd like an order of fries, with a side of stupid.

Okay, so, I'm straightening shoes (doesn't that sound the most exciting thing in the world?!) and this guy comes up to me asks, redneck accent and all, if a size 13 boy's shoe is the same as the size 3.

Say what?

I tried to explain that a size 13 is one size, and a 3 is a completely different size. He just kept repeating himself, saying that he was looking for a size 3, but found a 13 and thought maybe they were the same thing. Over and over and over.

I finally asked him to show me which shoe he was talking about. He walked me over to them, and said he couldn't find a 3, so he thought if he got a 13, it would be the same.

WHY? BECAUSE THEY BOTH END IN 3?

I explain again that a 13 is not the same as a 3, that in kids' shoes, it's actually smaller and that there are several sizes in between. He then asks if he could get another size then, because he didn't see any 3s. I look down at the shelf, and see 2 size 3s. I pulled one off the shelf and handed it to him. He thanked me and asked me AGAIN if I was sure that the 13 and 3 weren't the same because, "the bottom of his shoe said 3." Why we were still having the conversation at that point, I don't know, because he was standing there with the 3 in his hands. But, I suppose if I hadn't simply wished him a nice day and walked away, I'd probably still be standing there, listening to him tell me that the shoe had a 3 on the bottom of it, and that's what he wants, but he thought a 13 and 3 were the same.

Final thought: Wow. That really happened.