Friends: Gotta Love Them

Howdy! It's 1:37 am here and I'm sleepy. The below is cut and pasted from my Diaryland entry. I'm a lazy person at heart (like you didn't know, right?) and don't want to type the same thing twice. Bad news, I'm up to 165lbs today. Don't know what the hell went wrong, how I can gain 4 lbs in two days. They were only TWO f*in' donuts.

On to the Diaryland entry:
Here I am.


You know, writing this stuff earlier in the day might be a better thing. That way, I can come up with spicy stuff. Yeah, fiction, but so what? Do you REALLY want to know about the crusty stuff in the bathtub that needs cleaning?


Didn't think so.


Anyone check out that Isabella V. runaway blog? It's fiction that's trying to pass as real. Much like a friend of mine. Ha.


Ok, there's a friend who owes me money. She's had it for a year, exactly $1500. Keeps saying she'll pay it back and we've had some financially crappy times where even $10 would have been a boon.


So I get an email last week from her saying she's sending something. I don't reply, not trying to be mean or because I'm angry, like she thinks. Just don't know what to say that hasn't already been said. I suppose I could cut and paste the "Ok! That's great! Be sure not to send so much that it puts YOU in a bind," from all the emails I've sent that said that. There's been several.


I'd typed that "don't worry" crap last summer, then gone to steal money from my kid's piggy bank to buy toilet paper and food. I didn't like hearing about her driving a nicer car than I have (not hard to do, BTW) or about her going to Red Lobster and the movies when I'd not been to either in six months or more. Hell, McDonalds would have been a treat.


Things are extremely much better, now. Far far better and we're fantastic. It was only last summer that it was the total sh*ts around here. My sister would come over and complain about the heat and why didn't we turn on the air. Um, because we couldn't afford it, maybe? Child and I would go to Walmart just to walk around and enjoy the refrigerated air. I usually managed to scrape up enough to get her a slushie. Not every time, but sometimes.


Another one was the "Why don't you just move to a smaller house?" Probably because once we sold our home and gave every cent to pay it off, we'd STILL owe money. That leaves us living in a car and trust me, I'd rather skim by, bouncing as few checks as possible while trying to pay bills than live in my piece of crap car. ( Have to say stuff like that about my car. Every time I actually like my car, something falls off it or explodes. Seriously. I'm NOT kidding.)

So anyway, former best friend like a sister emails me today saying she really is sending the money and wants to patch things up. I haven't replied due to not knowing what to say that doesn't make me sound like a total bitch. I'm wanting to say, "Riiiight. I'll be here by the mailbox, WAITING." It's a joke around here, when she's 'sending' anything. I tell my husband, we laugh because we know it's not going to happen, then go on our way. Every once in a while, when he's really fretting over bills, he'll comment that it would be nice to get something. Then we laugh again like it would actually happen and go on our way.


I'd sent her the money because she needed it to get a car. No car, no job. No job, no home for her and her kid and I couldn't let that happen. Was I stupid? I didn't think so at the time, now I'm thinking "blithering idiot" when I like me, "f-ing mornon" when I don't.


I'm still not so sure I'd just let her and her kid starve. To do over, I'd probably write the check again. Give away the last bit of our savings, again.


Double dumbass on me. The nice thing is now I *know* I can't rely on her to be totally honest. Everything she says goes to the "Whatever" part of my brain. If she wasn't going to send anything, she shouldn't have told me she was. Then, I wouldn't have told my husband that yes, she is going to pay us back and then be proven wrong. Over and over again.


I don't know why she wants to be my friend, anyway. I don't have any more money to 'loan' her. That's another thing I can't just email. "What? I'm broke now and of no use to you. Why would you give a crap what I think about you??? Why would you want to be MY friend? What do you think I can do for you because I don't see a damned thing."


But I'm not bitter. Or pissed.