Friday January 8, 2009
Just when I thought perhaps I would have an opportunity to forget the world and all its problems and finally have a chance to settle down and put the bits and pieces of our story together all hell breaks lose, once again. I guess there is more I need to divulge. My lessons are not over with yet.
As you can see by the a fore mentioned emails it has been one hell of a week. Between my family, money issues and worrying about where we will go next and if we will have a roof over our heads and food to eat, today was nearly the final straw. I was about to lose it.
Thank God for Al and Tee. They put things into perspective for me. Everyday this week it has been one stressful situation after another, but by the end of the day I calm down and realize that there is a purpose to all of this and I have to trust in my higher power. I have not been let down yet unless I have allowed myself to be. Separate your mind from your conscious. This has been Al’s advice to me now for the last few months.
I now hear this advice from people we admire. David Icke’s interview this week with Jeff Rense also stressed this point. We are not our minds. We are consciousness; we are perfect souls that have no beginning and no end. We live forever and this is just one bleep in the whole scheme of things. I am sure Al and I will look back at these times with great fondness, and a lot of laughter. Because what is going on in this world is so absurd that it is now at the point of ridiculousness. How people can not see what is staring them in the face is beyond me. But then I have woken up. If you are asleep you can not see right from wrong, or black from white, you will not understand where I am coming from. This is the only excuse I can think of for my family. They are brainwashed to the nth degree. They are so brainwashed they can not even look at the truth. It may crash their fragile world. A world hanging by a thread. One they are so desperate to hold together, even if it means throwing me to the wolves or locking me up in a mental institution. They have no idea how strong I am and how I will not allow my life to be led by anymore lies.
Today started off very hopeful. The sun was shining, the weather mild and unexpected. We heard that there was a storm a brewing, but it did not materialize. Al and Tee went for their usual morning walk and came back with the Priority Post delivery man and my birthday present and Christmas gift from my parents. Two money orders for $500. Great, the weekend and we could buy some cigarettes, wine and food!
We were literally down to our last cigarette this morning, have not had any booze in the house since New Years Eve weekend and have been eating a lot of pasta, eggs and little meat. And as usual, it hasn’t failed yet; just when we are down to our last straw or $5 we are saved.
We decided to take the bus over to the shopping area. There isn’t a corner store around here for miles, as Al can attest to. A few days back when we were down to our last $20 and had smoked our last cigarette Al decided he would walk over to the only place in miles that sold cigarettes, the local garage. I asked him before he left how long it would take him and he estimated an hour tops.
Three hours later he still was not home. I was panicking. I had visions of him in the hospital, in jail, lying in some ditch, with no I.D. and no way of contacting us. Anyway my mind was working overtime. All the horrors I was imagining. Tee and I left here on our own with no one to contact that would help us. Because now there is absolutely no one that I can think of that will come and save us. We are on our own. I can bare anything other than being separated from my guys.
Well, as it turned out my worries were as worries always are, absurd. I allowed my mind to take over and suffered the consequences for one of the worst hours of my life. Al had decided to keep on walking until he came to the nearest store where he could buy some bread for us and meat for Tee. It ended up being a two hour walk. A beautiful one though. We drove by the scenery today. Hills, streams, lakes, tree lined vistas. This area is very gorgeous. Oh how I long to see this place in the spring. It’s pretty now but I can imagine it in all its glory. When all the trees are alive and the weather is perfect.
There is a bus stop that is not far from here that brings us to one of the shopping and banking areas in Dartmouth. So in order to economize we decided to take the bus today and go to the nearest bank in order to cash the money orders. I foresaw no problems. I had gone on the internet and read that money orders were safer than mailing cash.
So we get off the bus at the nearest banking area which is in the same vicinity as the local supermarket and liquor store. We can’t wait to cash the money orders so we can buy ourselves cigarettes and enjoy them with a cup of coffee. Then we will do our shopping for the week, take a taxi home, make spaghetti and have some wine. Heaven, I am thinking.
I go into the T.D. bank for the first time in the last year with confidence. No one here knows my history. I no longer live in Ontario. How I am incapable of cashing a cheque or looking after my finances and am a ward of the Public Guardian. How I should be locked up in a mental institution because I was two weeks behind in my mortgage payments and the bank was going through foreclosure procedures with my home. I’m in another province and I am free. So I go to the teller, pen in hand, ready to sign on the line and she asks me if I have an account with them. “No” I say, “all I want to do is cash this money order. We are from out of town and I have cancelled my bank account.”
“Well unfortunately you need to have an account with us in order to cash a money order” the teller says. I am visibly upset. “This money order is supposed to be like cash. I have my passport with me and other I.D. Why can you not cash a guaranteed money order?” She had no answer for me but she would check with her manager. Sorry no can do, said the manager. These are the RULES. Well after the week I just had, I did lose it and nearly cried. “How can I cash it then? It’s from the post office. Can I cash it there? She doubts it. The only option she can think of is opening up a bank account. “You don’t have a bank account?” eyeing me suspiciously. “No I cancelled it because I was relocating”. “I have no money and no way of even getting back to where I am staying. I had just assumed that this money order was like cash. After all this is how they advertise them.” I was almost in tears and she did look sympathetic. “Go to the front desk and see if you can open an account” she says but it will take at least 40 minutes. Well I am worried that opening an account will open a can of worms. I talk to Al and we agree that all they want me to do is open an account. We will try our luck elsewhere.
So we go to two more banks and get basically the same response. What about the post office. We go to the nearest post office to find out it just closed the beginning of January but there is one at another location not too far from here. So we hail a taxi and ask him to take us there and tell him of our dilemma. He can not believe that a bank will not cash a money order and takes us to the nearest post office that is located in another supermarket.
“Can you cash money orders?” I ask the woman at the help desk. “Yes” she says. Eureka, we are saved. So I take out one of my $500 money orders and she looks at it shocked. “This is a lot of money. There is no way I can cash this”. Now I am pissed. “A lot of money” I say. “How about the trillions of dollars the banks are getting from governments in bail out funds. This has already been paid for with cash and now I can’t cash it. Does this make sense?” What can she say? I ask her what my options are. “Well the post office in downtown Halifax should have enough cash on hand to cash it but any other post office in the area will not be able to”.
I give her my spiel. I’m from out of town, I have absolutely no money. The post office advertised money orders like there are as good as cash and safer. I went to three banks and no one would cash it. I cancelled by bank account and have no money, this is all I have and now I can’t even pay the taxi driver waiting for me, etc. etc. ect. With a few tears … which at this point were honestly a few tears.
We are trying to avoid paying any more money than we have to, to get my birthday and Christmas money. We have a taxi driver waiting outside so in order to pay him we must cash this cheque. The only option, it now looks like is going downtown (probably a $40 cab ride) and praying there are no other roadblocks to cashing the money order.
Now the cab driver is really angry. “I can’t understand why you are not more angry” Ogar says. I think of the only other option which we were trying to avoid. Ok … next stop Money Mart. I have an account with them. Ogar feels bad. “This is where I picked you up.” We contemplated all options and the best one was the nearest pay day loan shark cheque cashing operation. I am often flabbergasted at how many of these places exist and are very busy to boot.
So Ogar drove us to the nearest loan shark cheque cashing institution. It was not a Money Mart. Ogar did not want us to pay more money for the fare then we absolutely had to so he said try this place first. Of course my account was not registered with them and I was told in order to cash the money order first I would need to open an account. This would take at least 20 minutes (the cab is waiting outside … cha cling, cha ching) and even then he could not guarantee that he would get approval to cash this government issued money order that had been paid with by cash and was couriered to me and I was led to believe that this was the safest and quickest way to transfer funds. So I tell the employee my dilemma. Now I am very upset, I ask him if there is a Money Mart nearby. There is one not too far (another $10 cab ride). He sees my distress and says to me “Look I know they are our competition but you are probably better off going to Money Mart because you have an account with them.”
I sauntered in … trying to look as positive as I could. “What can we do for you” the woman behind the booth asks. “Do you cash money orders?” I ask. “Well it depends. I’m not sure. Do you have an account with us?” “Yes I do” I say ever so confidently but shaking inside. She types in my name. She immediately pulls up my account and verifies my identification. “Should be no problem. But I will have to get approval from my manager before I can cash it”. Approval from a manager to cash a government issued guaranteed money order in the amount of $500 even though I have been “banking” with this institution and have paid big time for the privilege for the last 6 months?!!!. What are they so concerned about? I explain to her that there is a taxi waiting outside for me. She is pleasant and efficient and goes to her manager and comes back a few minutes later with the great news. “I can cash if for you and that will cost you $20.” At this point $20 to cash this guaranteed government issued best way of transferring funds money order in the amount of $500 that cost I don’t know how much for my sister plus the cost to make sure I got it as soon as possible money order was a bargain. I look at Al and Ogar through the window and gave them a thumbs up. They look joyous.
I know this sounds insignificant in the whole scheme of things, but to me it pointed out just how absurd and unjust this world is. After this week all I could see we are good sheeple doing their jobs, thinking they were protecting the other sheep, never questioning any authority, or the absurdity of the world they are living in. My family being a prime example.
Once again though we have met a good soul, a taxi driver who is from Iran. He was sympathetic and kind and awake. Ogar took pity on us and would not accept more than $20 for a cab ride that I am sure, if Ogar followed the rules, would have cost us well over $50.
Al and I decided to get very drunk that evening. We had one hell of a week and deserved it.
What to be grateful for:
Taxi cab drivers from Iran
Wine
Having a roof over our heads
Good food to eat
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