Oh, I am really enjoying this! I am really enjoying appreciating Money As Necessary Energy and Honoring Myself By Simply Thinking of Money As Energy! I am really enjoying the “DO WHAT YOU LOVE AND THE MONEY WILL FOLLOW!” fairy-dust-and-feng-shui! Buy a red wallet! Wear red string! Stick red pantyliners all over the walls! Yay!
Well, let me see. I’m 21, a little younger than you. Yeah, that’s right. I guess I was born to be a student. My last boyfriend was a lot older…kind of like you. He loooooved to teach me things, all KINDS of things. I felt shy at first, but then…[giggle]. He said I had a heart-shaped ass—”
Today’s headline news, as tedious and useless as the headlines on the Times and the Post and the Globe: Student loans! Dangerously overdue, all forbearance maxed out, and I do not qualify for any of the deferments. I talked to the customer service rep for twenty minutes, while she punched in various numbers and scenarios. No go. Unless I want to go BACK TO SCHOOL AT LEAST HALFTIME. Because THAT, my friends, makes sense.
I said to the student loan rep, “Nothing? Not the working mother deferment? Not the economic hardship deferment? How about the picked-the-wrong-effing degree deferment?”
“No, ma’am! Have a great day, ma’am!” she chirped. Click.
Jesus Christ, I thought. Try: “Good luck, ma’am.” “Better luck next life, ma’am.” “Sorry your situation sucks, ma’am.” “How’d you fuck up your life like that, ma’am?” Really, shouldn’t these people be trained to say anything but “Have a great day”?
—oooh, you sound like you have a LOT to teach me. Yeah. Do you want to know what I look like? You do? I thought you did. I’ve got red, red hair, all the way down to my ass. I’ve got bright green eyes. I’m 5’5″, not very tall [giggle]—”
I am not very tall in the world of money. And this is bullshit, fellow breeders-and-weepers, and my beloved clever non-breeders-but-sometimes-weepers. If this is the American dream, I’m dreaming in Scandinavian from now on.
Let me mention other factors at hand—some of which include a laptop loan to Mom to be repaid (it broke, irreparably, a few months ago and Mom gave me an emergency loan), an unhappy oil company, other overdue bills to be paid—ah, don’t even get me started on that one. Forget I even brought it up.
Basically, I’m supposed to be too smart and skilled for this crap. On paper, it looks that way. I HAVE a respectable job. I dared to have children, but just two—yes, because daring to have kids is a risk, apparently the biggest risk a woman can take when it comes to flirting with eventual poverty. Read that the other day in some reputable place, and it would have been sobering had I not had some wine in my system already.
No need to offer any kind advice on fuel assistance, government cheese, food stamps, the wise use of credit, ways to self-publish, etc. Well versed, extremely so, in all. I know in the ins and outs, the pros and cons of those matters. I weigh them regularly, have used various means of assistance, no pride issues there. But I am tired of this, as my readers well know.
It is clearly time for new thinking.
—mmmm, no way, I’m not a tease! Unless you want me to be, but I think you and I both want more than that. Are you touching yourself right now? Are you? Ooh, I looove the way you do that. I love watching you touch yourself. I wish you could see what I’m doing, can you see it? Can you guess? Do you want to guess, baby?
Do you want to guess? First, I hung up the phone with the student loan rep, who was a pawn herself, talking to me from some other country, being paid peanuts most likely. It is not her fault. She most likely has children to feed too. We do what we must, we mothers.
Then, I began researching Ultrasound Technician Training and Radiology Technician Training. No veins, no IVs. Both require warmth, tact, sensitivity, a ready sense of humor, diplomacy. I’ve got those at the ready. Which of course would suggest to some that perhaps I should be working as an ambassador or high-level diplomat, but apparently I hear those jobs go pretty fast, to some of the worst candidates around. But hey, that’s just me, a Stupid Frumpy-Ass Mother in New England, who clicks on MoveOn.org petitions to feel like she counts, somewhere besides home. I love mattering so much to my baby girls, but I dread the future for them, if this is what their educated, creative mother does while they watch “Arthur” and “Maya & Miguel.”
So: Ultrasound Tech and Radiology Tech…wow, great! ONLINE DIPLOMAS POSSIBLE. Because of course I personally would want someone who’d gotten an Ultrasound Tech degree ONLINE counseling me about my high-risk pregnancy. Again, I feel the need to say: JESUS CHRIST ALMIGHTY. This is one effed-up country. So much for Mom and apple pie. Popular films show boys humping apple pies, and Mom doesn’t get a lot of airtime. She’s Fulfilled Enough, I suppose.
These are my options? Go back to school halftime, accrue more debt to hold at bay the debt I already have? Join the armed forces and leave my babies behind? Drag my children back to the inner city to teach 50 hours a week so I can use most of my income to pay for the childcare for them so I can defer my loans? BECAUSE ALL OF THAT SEEMS A LITTLE LACKING IN COMMON SENSE. A little less than straightforward. But I’m just a mama now. What do I know?
—ohhhh, I know, baby, do you want me to pull my red suede miniskirt up just a little bit higher? Do you? Oh, you’re bad. I should have guessed, you and that big fat [$#@!] of yours! I love a big bad boy.
Big bad boys. Found some. I searched for full scholarships in just about anything. Not so many of those, and Equine Proctology is not really my bag. Although I would become an Equine Proctologist IF they gave me a full scholarship, brought the horses to me so I could keep a flexible schedule so I could continue to care for my children and not just the horses’ asses, AND the student loan lady from India could assure me the full Equine Proctology scholarship would not get in the way of that much needed deferment.
Phone sex seems only slightly more distasteful than Equine Proctology. I’d get to be home in case my girls got sick, I’d get to take on writing gigs if they came along, I would probably just need to cultivate an alcohol addiction or a little drug sumpin’-sumpin’. That’s sort of family-friendly, minus the drugs and alcohol and self-contempt.
The concept of a truly family-friendly, woman-friendly workplace seems a complete pipe dream. Google, are you for real? If anyone out there works for Google, tell me it’s true that you have flexible time (the real deal) and daycare on premises and you’re feeling appreciated not with scanty words, but with a salary that reflects that appreciation. Tell me, ooh, yeah, tell me quick. Don’t make me wait, Google workers. Tell me about that. All about that. Ooh, baby, tell it to me hard and fast. I like when you talk like that, you know I do, baby.
I closed the door to the bathroom and sat on the toilet. Well, Christ, I had to see. If it’s going to be Equine Proctology or phone sex, I better do my research, and figure out which one is going to make me feel like more of a (heart-shaped or horse-shaped) ass.
One site had very insightful .wav files for prospective applicants. Very thoughtful, I thought. I listened to the Basic version of a call (Miss Redhead), then moved on to the Kinky:
—oh, don’t you like surprises? I’ve got one for you. Yeah, baby. Reach between my legs. Ooh! Told you! I knew would like my 38DDs bouncing on your chest while you grabbed onto my big fat [$#@!]. That’s right, baby. I’ve been taking hormones. I’ve got it ALL for you, baby, everything you can want. And now I’m going to roll you over and give you the surprise of your life baby, right up the—
I laughed. I laughed very, very hard, the sort of desperate laughter that must in history have overcome at least a few souls being led to the guillotine. Because I’m either sticking my hand up a horse’s ass, or letting some poor Schmoe have it in the same place with an imaginary voiceover oompa-loompa.
These appear to be my current options if I do not wish to default on my loans. I am the mother of two little girls, a feminist mother, a bright liberal arts lady who can handle herself (not in that way, although I could fake it for some flex time and decent pay) in most scenarios. I am kind, I am good, I am compassionate, I am a hard worker, I am an independent worker and a team player, and I am broke as f***.
So I reminded myself that Gloria Steinem was once a Playboy Bunny (how fluffy and harmless they seem now, the Bunnies! Like cheerleaders! Not even as athletic!). I moved on to the hardcore scenario, and I am sad to report that none of it was particularly shocking or daunting. [Those of you who know of my long-ago employment, this ain't the place to dish. I have to leave something for a damn memoir, something that no doubt will get published after I've long kicked the bucket. But maybe I'll have a great-great-granddaughter who gets the cash and a chance to fly to Iceland and live out a few dreams. She won't even remember my name, no doubt, without prompting.]
—WHAT? DID YOU FORGET MY NAME, YOU P*SSY? YOU PIECE OF SH*T?
Yes, this is a family blog, new readers! Isn’t it swell, motherhood? Family? Babies cooing on our laps? Which baby sling are you using? Montessori or Steiner or private or public? TV or no TV? Oh my goodness! We have so much to think about, don’t we?
And again: —WHAT? DID YOU FORGET MY NAME, YOU P*SSY? YOU PIECE OF SH*T?
Yes, I am now a mother. And I frequently feel like yelling that very ALL CAPS sentiment! Imagine that! To have two kids, and you still know the word P*SSY! The one that does not meow, unless you are REALLY skilled. (Call me.)
Hardcore .wav was truly ridiculous. There is just not much imagination required. You want to know, right? You want it, right? You want it like I want to pay off my piece of sh*t student loans? You got it. Assume the reading position:
ASSUME THE POSITION! ALL FOURS! SAY MY NAME! THAT’S RIGHT, MISTRESS LINDSEY! NOW CRAWL OVER HERE AND LICK MY SHINY BOOT, YOU LITTLE BOY-WHORE. I’M GOING TO TIE A STRING AROUND YOUR B**LS SO HARD YOU’LL NEVER FORGET MY NAME AGAIN—
Hattie Belle bursts into the room. “Who was that lady on your computer, Mommy? Why was she yelling at the man?”
Crap. Snap laptop shut. “Oh, um, it’s just a game she was playing. She was playing the mean witch.”
Hattie Belle considers this. “Did he like the game, or did the man think she was too mean?”
“Kind of both, honey.”
“Oh.”
I don’t like the game. But until I come up with something better, I might have to play it.
And that sucks more than Equine Proctology and the sex industry combined. And, um, apparently they do combine. But I couldn’t bring myself to listen to that .wav file.
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