The Waiting

I knew when I started this thing that the title was going to have some relevance. Or maybe I just hoped. And now I realize that if I had been saving money for the last two years, I'd be putting a down payment on a house right now, or maybe moving into a nice apartment. But between having the time of my life and being depressed out of my mind (a daily and costly transaction) I haven't got two dimes. I decided to move last week and realized the only thing I had to liquidate was my truck, so I scraped the stickers off the window and took it to the car wash, where the guy promptly broke off a valve stem and I had to race down the street with a deflating tire to get it fixed. A sign? No. It turns out that the place that gave me such a great deal on tires a few years ago just didn't change the stems, so every one of them was a whisper away from snapping off and leaving me in a bind somewhere in Garner Valley, which is about the only place that truck gets to go these days. And besides, without a raise or a better job, selling that thing is only going to get me through about 6 months.

Monetarily speaking, I'm not big on delaying gratification. When I think of all the things I would have missed over the last couple of years if I had been paying rent, I really don't see the point. I'd have $37.50 per week to eat and drink. No dentist, no shooting, no trips, no internet. I'd have finished all my books in the first year, and after that it would've been slitwrist city. Times like these I look at all the shit I own and wish I could give it back for full purchase price. Mostly it would be DVDs. I mean, I had every intention of watching The King and I, Oklahoma and The Sound of Music, but I haven't yet and now that Rodgers and Hammerstein collection is looking like a waste of twenty bucks. But I can't very well go back in time and unbuy it, I mean, what kind of trouble might I have got into if I hadn't spent that entire weekend watching the second season of King of the Hill? I might've gone out for a drive at just the right time to be in front of a semi-truck driver who wasn't paying attention. Again. I am alive and all my limbs are attached and working, who am I to regret even the smallest cog in the wheel that brought me here? I think cogs are all supposed to be the same size though - maybe that's my problem.

Well, one of my problems.

I don't want to spend another summer here, either. This place is like a burrito full of suck and hot sauce until November.