est. 1992

all of my grandparents were so thrifty and smart as depression babies.

my parents…not as much, but I can tell that my dad was influenced by his parents’ ability to make ends meet (and move around a lot throughout his childhood to do so) and it had come out in him like, getting real addicted to eBay.

my mom was the opposite, she realized that she had more money than her parents ever did, and proceeded to spend it all, all the time, racking up debt I guess to keep up middle class appearances to a degree, until she randomly decided to leave my dad and be poor again and live “a simpler life” in the woods with her middle school sweetheart. (listen…it’s a whole thing)

I think I managed to inherit an assortment of these traits. I make measured decisions about money and purchases and I take care of my belongings like my grandparents, I do love a treasure hunt and a bargain like my dad, and I am occasionally taken with a cute trend and have a desire to make my home beautiful like my mom.

I’m now with a partner who has a similar mix of sensibilities. His dad supported the family with grass farming, which meant that their lives were dependent on how well the grass grew each year. Farming is investing, you spend all of your money on it to make a bigger return. They couldn’t afford to make any big purchases or go on any big vacations without careful consideration of the finances. Meanwhile, he was buying land when he was able, turning the land into crops, and eventually, leasing that land to other farmers so that he could retire, and so that he had something tangible to pass down instead of just, you know, the decades of financial anxiety.

my stepson is 18 and has his first job, handling freight. he was definitely dazzled by his first couple paychecks, and immediately purchased some things he had been wanting, like a new phone, mini fridge and some cool tapestries for his walls. then he told us that he is now putting a big chunk of his paycheck into savings, because he figured it was a good thing to do.

these sandals are disgusting, they started out tan and are now dark brown, splotched with various cooking oils and detergents and houseplant shit and whatever

they are also falling apart, the cheap leather is delaminating and the foam on the bottom is all crushed and collapsed from my fat ass walking on them all the time

I bought a replacement pair, this time in black so they hopefully won’t look as disgusting when they inevitably get dirty, and the foam is a little thicker to support aforementioned fat ass

thing is, I can’t bring myself to start wearing these new sandals

these clowns really just sent me an automated email from the website I applied on to tell me this

who the fuck else applied for this niche ass job I will kick their ass

fuck they did not even look at my application, on the website it just says “Application Received” and not “Pending Review” which it should say if it’s been opened…

they made it a mandatory question on the application “Do you have a Masters?” and I wasn’t going to lie, but did answering that question keep me out of the pool completely?

they are still fucking idiots, there’s no way they got more than a couple applicants, check all the applications you lazy assholes…maybe recognize my fucking name because I’ve been working there for 5 fucking years and maybe think, “hm no yeah we should probably personally call her about this”

like whatever, I don’t have a masters, I was going to get one for you people if you ran this process the way you should instead of relying on a fucking website to do your correspondence, fuck…if you had thousands of employees I’d get it, but it’s a community college, and I’m one of five faculty members in my department, wtf get off your ass

I need to tell the press about this (jk, not really, but it feels like it)

I definitely need to tell my union and the school about this…like, their decision was valid or whatever, I don’t have the degree required, I’m not questioning that, but I do deserve more than this AND I ain’t got nothing to lose whatsoever so I might as well

the positive thing about this is that I don’t have to fuck with the fuckass advisory committee made up of funeral home owners/managers anymore, telling me my classes are pointless because my graduates are “socially awkward” and I’m supposed to fix that when half of my graduates are COVID high schoolers and the other half are neurodivergent good lord

other positive things are that I don’t have to deal with lowkey abusive students being shitty to me and others, that’s cool (there’s only one or two per year, but it’s enough to kind of like, make me feel like shit, and they never do anything bad enough to warrant reporting them to the school)

ALSO I legally own all of my lecture materials because I purposefully invested my personal time to re-design the courses and make them better, and I privately host everything myself, so because of that, they don’t get to have any of my shit, haahahhahahahaha

the losses are immeasurable though…this was a job I could see myself doing for the rest of my life. I loved it so much. I was so good at it. 95% of my students passed their board exams this year hello?!?!?! fuck off!

I was paid peanuts and was on Medicaid but it literally didn’t matter because the job was so cool and fulfilling!!!!!!!!

AHHHH! AHHHHHHHHHHH I’m in hell, why?

at least, at the very least, I get to add this to my list of weird jobs I’ve had when I apply for the next probably weird job (that hopefully has good health insurance so I can get MARRIED because that’s the other dystopian reality I’m living with AHHHHH)