Still Technically Alive

I hit Applebees in Conway SC (37 bucks inc tip). NOT SORRY.

(Hey Ed, you should hear the theme from MASH as you read these posts.  Great LYRICS).

I will live (not survive) as long as I can.  

I will NOT become a parasite again.  I'm too old to "disappear" into the wilderness, and have decided against Club Fed because I can't hit bars there.

I haven't talked to you guys about this because you'd reflexively blabber all that "never the answer" garbage at me, or (worse yet) offer me more money.

If I kill myself, it's partly for you guys.  I'm in a hopeless death-spiral, but you might spazz out and hurt yourselves even more to add more of your money to the toilet-bowl swirl in order to keep me alive and miserable for awhile longer.

Jeez we rarely talk except about the Browns.  I rarely see you.  I barely know your kids.  You'll barely MISS me!

No whining in there: Just sayin I GET it, and all of that is on me.

I'm a vet and entitled to burial on the VA, but just burn my corpse and flush the ashes down a terlet for all I care....

Well ok dump them in a forest instead so they can feed plants and stuff...

I'm a failure.  That's a fact.  

I wish I could go back and focus on singing/songwriting--I definitely had those gifts--but well...maybe I'll pull it off if I get recycled (as I suspect I will be).

Oh dammit I might be born in Iran and brainwashed---ok maybe I'll be a dog or a cow oknevermind...

I'm still here so far so okbye

I Love the American Legion. And Jerry. And Gina(sp?)

I stopped again at my "home" American Legion (Post 11 NC).  Jerry and his (bartender) wife Gina are just amazing people (you/Bev would love them).

After being stifled on-line, I followed on-line instructions to seek emergency financial aid through my home post.

Gena (sp?) spent 30-45 minutes on her phone trying to just get my membership number (long story)...

They knew I was looking for emergency financial aid, of course, but I'm proud to say that I never went into much detail or put them in an awkward position...

Anyway, I got blasted and stuffed for 25 bucks (including Gena's tip)...as Jerry again took me to a small building in back after the bar closed and fed me 3 more free beers and four sausages (which I took to go).

I gotta tell you guys, I have usually felt smarter than most of the people I have ever met...usually after only a few words.

Not so here!!! Such NICE people, but also SMART people!  

Yeah, I feel better now, kinda.  My situation is no less hopeless, and suicide is still my probable only way out...but right now my heart is light.  I am happy, because I got to see Jerry and Gina again.

No offense you guys, but to you I'm just "Rob".  These people just met me, so I guess I made a better first impression, or something.

That Jerry...crap we talked time-travel and sociology and politics and history and stuff...we disagreed sometimes, but it was never a contest, ya know?

...no really: I mean here and there I changed his mind, and he changed mine about something, and we TAUGHT eachother stuff! Imagine that!!!

But I digress: If I kill myself Jerry and Gina at American Legion Post 11 in NC are people you could talk to (if it's needful).

Okbye

Deeper and Deeper

I have 188.00 left.  My last paycheck was on 3/13.  CLC is being patient about their 400.00.

It's cool to know I can pull the plug at any time.  I'm not going to live like a monk when it won't do me any good.  I'm going to live, and not suffer.

I'll hit an American Legion tonight and use my Rewards points for a hotel tomorrow...and go to a bar there🠴🖕.

Korena said my withheld check was "in the mail". Another lie.  When she started another one of her "sick of your attitude" lectures I think I TOLD her I would kill myself in her truck, so she lied about a check to back me off.

She's been nice to me since.  But she still pays me 40cpm and steals from me (see "lost toll receipts, 12 volt cooler").

Do you know that she has never admitted she was wrong, about anything?  Nor apologized.  EVER.

Ask a shrink about that!

Robert: I'm Going to Tell You Something:

I have an outsranding balance with clc (about 375.00) for some of my hotel bills.  I'll have to call them and Sprint tomorrow to "make arrangements.

I'm 5 months delinquent on my Corporate fees and UPS Box.

Please minimize my weekly payments and defer the first two.

I can't fathom how I'm still here.

I sent the above email to Korena/Kate this morning after I got the email from CLC.  Predictably, she called me 5 minutes later with "Robert:  I'm going to tell you something: blahblah sick of your attitude blahblah"

And I lost it too.  Ed remember Mom and Dad?  I never had to out-shout anybody like that, including Teri, in my whole life--ever--except for that evil vicious bitch!

She hung up on me.  That's a victory, since I'm not ALLOWED to hang up on her.  I have to listen to the lengthy conclusion of her irrational, dishonest RANT and answer her "is that understood" with a meek "yes".

Ed I owe you 10k and you probably have some cause here:

I can't prove that she promised me 48 cents/mile but can tell you that company drivers are not supposed to pay for hotels during repairs.  The truck owner is (or should be) responsible for putting the driver in the hotel when the truck is down.

Forcing him to spend his own money on top of his lost revenues amounts to THEFT.  I'm in essence paying some of the expenses directly related to HER truck!!!

I refer not to this latest disaster, as I caused this damage to HER truck, but of all the other times I've been forced into hotels near New Castle or Newark DE waiting for repairs:

Most of which I could have had done cheaper and faster on the road.  She doesn't trust anyone (including ME, of course: you know how sneaky and selfish I am), and uses Bergeys exlusively because she gets to look them in the eye when she pays her bill).

Bergeys is the place that blames ECU malfunctions and starter failures on my electric cooler!  The ECU required a tow and I had to hit a hotel in New York.  Then a broken battery cable cost me another day in Indiana.  And it was loose battery cables all along.

But I pick up the truck and she asks me "you don't have a refrigerator or anything" my GOD:!$%×÷,?)&:€!!! Anyhow that fucking cooler thing and the unadulterated INSANITY of her and this situation has a lot to do with my current state of mind.

I've never met a less reasonable or rational person in my life, and that INCLUDES when I ran the psyche pod at the County Jail!

Anyhow yeah 40 cents a mile AND hotels when being repaired TOO see why I'm fucking broke and still hit fucking bars anyway?

Oh, and they had withheld a paycheck from me, which I might get tomorrow.  Maybe.

For the first couple days so far I got 2 for 1.00 hot dogs at Speedway.  That and some almonds I had have fed me so far.  I got 10.00 in Pilot points today, and can use them for dollar mcDonalds and stuff.

But I'm way early for my trailer pickup tomorrow so I'll go to Ruby Tuesdays now.

UPDATE: I blew 60 bucks getting hammered (and fed) at Ruby Tuesdays.  I do not feel guilty at all. 

I will NOT be homeless again.  I will NOT go back to where I was.  I have accepted suicide as my last resort, and will LIVE as well as I can (as pitiful as that is) until then.

I will fight, until the end...

Back to Hell

In 20 minutes or so I check out and go get the truck back.  I hope she didn't fix all the other minor dings and charge me for them too...but I bet she did.

Otherwise, I feel marginally better, and am ready to rock and roll.

It's all I can do, and at least I can actually do it now.  It makes me feel less helpless.

See, that's my nature.  I'm hard wired not to give up, and to keep getting back up.  I'll do it until it won't work any more.

If I kill myself, it will simply be a rational decision.

"Chemical imbalance"...to this day, she can't comprehend what part she had in my previous attempt!  Amazing!

Coping

I'm at McClarens Pub now.  Michaels is out of Coors Lite.

Yeah I'm supposed to be "responsible" and not spend a dime, but fuck that.

Everything on TV reminds me of how fucked I am.  People living normal lives.  What I once had and will never have again.  The cop shows have plenty of homeless people, so they're reminding me of where I'm headed if I don't just check out.

It's not a fucking chemical imbalance.  It is despair.  All I can do to escape it, temporarily, is my little bar/beer/Browns ritual.

I was okay until I smashed up HER truck, and missed all this time.  Now I'm doomed.

And I have no home, or privacy, or control--and the hell with you if you think my drinking some beer is irresponsible.  Can't I fucking have ANYTHING?  Anything at all?

About every other trucker in the USA gets to go HOME sometimes, AND drink some beer sometimes, and put their kids through college and stuff!

I know I'll run out of what little money I have AGAIN, but I'll cash my Pilot points and buy RAMAN NOODLES AGAIN FOR CRYING OUT LOUD and right now don't GIVE A SHIT.

If you don't understand this, you need a brain transplant!  I'm SICK of STRUGGLING just to fucking SUBSIST!  Putting off and stalling bills, swirling ever deeper...

And you know what Korena would tell me if I told her this again, Ed?  She's say I should "borrow from your brother" AGAIN.

You're just one big ATM, bro!  I tell her "I've hit my limit with these guys!  He has to stop this at some point and I don't blame him!"

"But he's family!"  

Oh, but now she knows about BEV, so ok it's HER fault, because YOU would otherwise keep throwing money at me til YOU went broke JFC I can't fathom her!

How 'bout paying for my hotel when the truck is down and paying me a decent wage like you said you would?

No TA or PETRO or even other Volvo dealer for her, even for routine repairs.  No I have to come here to New Castle and I NEVER get kicked out of the truck for less than two days...

That's 50/night for the damn hotel, and I could get the majority of these repairs done on the road without even missing a night!

50/night, often unneccesarily, because she is paranoid about who fixes the truck!

And the people who fix her truck charge her 130/hr for labor and blame my goddamn 12-volt cooler for every electrical problem the truck has! In other words, she SHOULD'NT trust them!!!  She SHOULD trust ME!

See why I'm going nuts?  Try dealing with that for a decade or so!

Screw it I only meant to explain why I say go jump in the lake if you begrudge this homeless perpetually broke plantation slave a few beers at a bar no matter how dire his situation.

I'll blog about the Browns now.

Make it Saturday. And Broke. AGAIN.

There is no hold in my bank account from CLC.  When I check out, my hotel bill will come off my available balance.  I might have 40 bucks left.

I'll get the truck on saturday, and deadhead to Georgia for a trailer.  Somehow I'll have to make it to NEXT tuesday...

God I'm so sick of this.

My Name is Toby

It's thursday, and the truck is supposed to be finished tomorrow.  I will have about 500.00 left.  I won't get paid this week, so I have to make that last 2 weeks.

Meanwhile, on the 25th I have to beg Sprint to put off my (incredible) 188.00 bill for as long as possible.

Don't forget the approximately 1100.00 I'm 5 months overdue on for my mailbox and with Nevada, and my 100.00 monthly payment on my defaulted dental debt.

Did I mention that I've been filling a rotten tooth with "water weld" for the last 7 months?

I will sneak my 12-volt cooler back into the truck (shhh) and save myself a bunch on food.

When I go back, she will lecture me on my terrible attitude, how the inside of HER TRUCK is a "disaster area" she is ashamed of people seeing (bullshit.  It's not up to Felix Unger's standards, but it's closer to that than Oscar Madison's.  She goes past the front and "inspects" my personal space in the sleeper.  On this whole fucking planet, I can't even have that little cubby-hole to myself).

Three years and three months, and I'm deeper in debt and minus my trucker GPS...

She won't have a Cab Card for me again.  This was the fifth time I've been in deep trouble for not having one.  The first two times, she screamed at me that my registration was my cab card and argued with the DOT cops too.

EVERY over the road truck in the US is issued a cab card.  The cab card lists the states the truck is apportioned (allowed to operate) in.

The DRIVER is responsible for this document, and I can just about guarantee you that she will tell me, once again, that I will get it later, and send me out there to get in trouble yet AGAIN.

I will start to say that this is unaccep--and she will instantly start screaming at me again.

Oh, and she will also probably forbid me to park at any American Legions in the future (you recall, she dictates where I park overnight, too right?)

Normally, her insults and accusations are all delusional lies, but now, finally, I caused this damage to her truck and she has that on me, which is very, very bad for me...I can't even defend myself any more.

To top it off, I will be paying the 8500.00 off in weekly installments.  If I went deeper in debt in over three years in HER TRUCK, what hope is left to me now?

Without my laptop, I can't play Cid Meier's Civ 5, and I live a life of quiet desperation.  So I (shh) park near bars sometimes to escape this cage.

In that hotel room in PA where I tried to check out the first time, I was eating Raman Noodles, 1.00 hot dogs at the Speedway, and 1.00 burgers at McDonalds, and each and every week being told to vacate my room before my rent was finally paid (usually a day or two late).

I won't go back there.  I have no home.  No apartment or house.  None of those expenses.  I should be able to find some solace drinking some beer and blogging about my Cleveland Browns a few nights a week...

On my PERSONAL time.  On my TIME OFF-DUTY.  In what is supposed to be a fucking free country, in which slavery is illegal.

I was calling the Salvation Army and churches trying to find someplace else in that room 3 years and 3 months ago.

It's not that bad this time, except my future looks even worse.

I'm going to Mitchell's for Happy Hour today to blog about the Browns, and tomorrow will go back to hell. If she's not too vicious or nasty, I won't kill myself in HER TRUCK right then.

I'll get back on that hampster wheel and my life of quiet desperation and unneccessary stress without a cab card or fuel on weekends...

I'll do that until I lose my mailbox or phone service or go hungry, and then I will decide not to wake up again.

In case that happens suddenly, I'll text a link to this site to my peeps.  The digits I'll send will be my First National Bank (FNB) card number, the pin to my I-phone, and stuff like that.

My possessions aren't worth fighting over, but for what it's worth, I want my brother Richard Edward to get all of it.

Ed, I know you're not litigeous, but a good lawyer might find enough here for you to go after Korena, as she is why I haven't been able to pay you what I owe you.

But I was serious when I said that she has no moral compass or sense of right and wrong: it is possible that she will try to collect the balance of what I owe her from YOU.

At the very least, you can use what's in here to fight her.

I'm sorry, E.  Driving for anybody else I've ever driven for, you'd have had your money back in 6 months.

I'd have had Cid Meier and not stop at bars so much.  I'd have hired a tax lawyer and...well no sense dwelling on it (now I am depressed!)

But you see why I am almost as glad to be hurting my owner as I am saddened to have let you down.

Most likely, this isn't my last entry.

Oops!

I accidentally posted one of my Brownssanity posts here, and haven't yet found a way to relocate it.

It might be just as well, since it should prove that my suicidal tendancies have nothing whatsoever to do with a "chemical imbalance" in my brain or something.

That's Korena: After everything she had put me though, and the contract she had dictated to me, and all the years I had worked with her, my attempted suicide looked like a "chemical imbalance" to her!

Somehow, she managed to never KNOW me!  She fucking DRIVES me to kill myself, and then tells me to go to the VA to fix myself!!!

Nothing is EVER her fault!  She is NEVER wrong!  Or remorseful.  She has never admitted that she was wrong (let alone apologized) since I met her.

There is a WHOLE LOT WRONG with her.

You guys will detect it almost instantly if you have to deal with her.  She'll try to pretend to be reasonable at first, but she'll lose her mind as soon as you question her beyond her intitial distortions and lies.

And listen, Ed: She is utterly amoral.  She just might sue YOU over the debt my suicide might leave her with! Korena has no moral compass.

I can't tell you how many times she's compelled me to lie for her...I'm not a liar--she's tortured me that way, and (narcissistic projection) seems to think I'm as dishonest as she is!

Anyway, I'm the same guy I always was. I should still have 500 bucks when I get back in my truck.  I will restore my hidden cooler (shh!) and buy some food.  

I might even pay my Sprint bill on time (we'll see). And I'll run my ass off, as usual.

But the math says that paying off this new debt will drive me under, and I won't accept it.

Suicide is easy.  I can take or leave it.  It beats prison or homelessness, and obviously I have no hope of ever repaying you, my beloved brother.

It's not "clinical".  It's simply a logical option for me, to escape further agony and, by the way, free YOU GUYS of at least worrying about me!

Unmistakably, Korena put me here.  I should have been able to pay this debt off.  I should have a laptop, and you should have been paid in full.

Most company drivers have homes or apartments.  Cars.  Families.  And after three years, I'm still here?

Sue HER.

More Background

You need to understand this: Since early 2016, I've been driving HER truck.  I owed my brother 10,000.00.  I have repaid him 500.00.

I had some dental work, and defaulted on a payment plan because I WENT BROKE and missed an autopayment.  This went to collections, and now I'm paying 1100.00 off at 100.00/month.

I had to call them to ask them to skip this month's payment.  I asked Sprint to delay this month's payment til next month (setting up a balloon payment).

I'm 4 months overdue for my mailbox payment and Nevada Corporate fees; around 1100.00.

I lost my laptop before I lost my own truck, and have never been able to replace it.  My Trucker GPS went down, and I can't even replace that.

It got worse when Korena stole my cooler, and I was forced to spend all that money on (bad) retail food.

It would be better if she had ever paid me what she had promised me, or paid for my hotel stays when the truck got repaired.  That's pretty standard for company drivers.

We are not supposed to dig into our own pockets to pay for lodging when forced to leave our trucks.

I think I was making 42 cents a mile when I left USA Truck THIRTEEN YEARS ago, and she pays me 40 cpm in 2019?

This time isn't as bad as it was in that hotel room in 2016.  I'm not forced to BEG her to cover my hotel bill (with money I had sent to her from the sale of my truck). She's not calling and emailing me daily to insult amd degrade me and shout me down.

I'm not broke YET, and can still go to Michell's for their dirt-cheap Happy Hour and blog about the Browns.

That's another thing: Korena tries to dictate how I spend my personal time too.  Where am I?  Am I drinking and then sleeping in HER truck?

She thinks I'm an idiot.  Tells me that's illegal.  Ask a cop about that! 

She's a micromanager and a control-freak, and an almost compulsive liar.

I'm going back to hell, and I'm so very, very tired of it.  I will find no mercy.  There will be no reprieve.  My future is to work, and be treated like a plantation slave, until I die.

Living a life of quiet desperation (and unneccessary DRAMA) to the end.

The good news is that I can afford Rescue Tape and plastic bags.

Falling Harder

The bill for the truck will be 8,500.00.  I will need to sign a legal document obliging me to pay off a loan Korena will take out to pay it.

That's fair, but I can't imagine how I will be able to pay it.

Korena told me she would pay me 48 cents per mile, and she pays me 40 instead.  

Every time the truck is down for repairs, I'm required to pay for my own hotel.

I had to sign an agreement to pay off my dentist in installments.  I'm 4 months delinquent with the State of Nevada (750.00) for my corporation, and as long overdue for my UPS Box.  I STILL owe you (Ed) 9500.00.

I've been literally broke a few times.

Now the IRS is calling me AGAIN.

Korena was trying not to cry about this trouble I've caused her, but I have a hard time feeling sorry for her.

You know, as usual, she said the inside of the truck looks like a bomb went off inside it, and again that I need to clean it thoroughly.

First, her standards are rediculous.  She has to be talking about my bed not having been made, my stuff stashed in the upper bunk, etc.

Second, I live in that truck and have a right to privacy.  I'm almost 63 years old, and she's yelling at me like I'm an 11 year-old living in her house.

She's been degrading and insulting me this way for a long time, just as I knew she would when she put me in HER TRUCK.  That's why I tried to kill myself in that hotel room, after I lost my own truck.

I was entering slavery, and knew it.

I never need home-time.  I set up my mailbox where it is so I would never have to go even one mile out of route to pick up my mail.

Any sane dispatcher would appreciate this, but Korena SCREAMED at me for picking up my mail after three months without asking permission!

She always blames a customer or the carrier for this rediculous crap.  That time, she blamed New World.

She blames the carrier for not allowing me to fuel from friday to midnight sunday each week.  It's actually her irrational compulsion to max out each and every settlement check.

Like she told me I'd be paid 48 cpm, she told me I'd have EZPass.  Then she told me I couldn't have it because I'd abuse it.  ME.

She's paid THOUSANDS by foregoing the 15% savings.  Brakes, the drive train, fuel; thousands of dollars just to keep me in my place.

I've had toll receipts disappear; once from inside the envelope I left her paperwork in!  She's burned me out of all that money!

Her crazy service writer blamed my 12-volt (cigarette plug)  COOLER for ECU malfunctions and a starter failure!  She STOLE my cooler the first time!

She won't listen to reason!  The service writer explained to me that since they couldn't find anything else wrong, it had to be the cooler.

The ECU failures started shortly after I left the Dealer.  It was 2 LOOSE BATTERY CABLES.  I fixed it myself!

I had 13 volts when the starter failed.  I'd only been parked for 30 minutes.  There's a 20 amp fuse.  It's not POSSIBLE that any 12-volt appliance could cause these issues!

But NOW, i can't have a freaking cooler and have to spend 100/week on food!

Blaming ME for the ECU and the starter and everything else that ever happened to the truck...

Well this time it IS my fault.

...and now she will remind me of it constantly, every time I get UPPITY.

I plan to try to make it out of this mess, but if I can't I'm going to hurt her as bad as I can on my way out.

Korena is evil.  She is cruel, merciless, and a monster.

Falling Down

I really did it this time.  I didn't set the brake, and the truck rolled into a traler.  12,800 in damage to the truck, and it's on me.

I've often thought about driving Korena's truck off a cliff and going out that way, because I want to hurt her as badly as possible.

She is a monster.

I wish I could say I smashed it up on purpose, but it was just plain idiocy on my part.

Why?  Well, it's a long story.  You guys know some of it, but I should hit the high points:

The tax trouble was my fault.  I didn't file for several years when I was an owner-operator.

Korena told me that her father in law was a prominant CPA, so with Power of Attorney, she could get a more reasonable settlement for me.

I gave her all the receipts I had (in monthly envelopes), and contact info for my old Accountant in Van Buren AR, who had the rest.

(That one never did anything.  After awhile, I figured that since I was a Nevada S-corp, spent 60,000.00 buying my truck and APU, and then between repairs, hotel rooms, the railroad meal allotment, expenses, and ability to depreciate forward or backward, I never since netted enough to OWE any taxes.  They would owe ME money.  So I would let them keep their money, and they shouldn't bother me.  Stupid.  I know.  But that's how I got in trouble).

Korena charged me 250.00/week after that "for bookkeeping".  But I was hit for several more major repairs on my aging truck, and lost a lot of time and money, going into debt to both Korena and my brother Ed.

I couldn't afford the 250.00/week.

Then, Korena said I owed her 1,250.00 and she needed it immediately.  I borrowed MORE money from Ed and fedexed a check.

When the check didn't arrive the very next day, she demanded that I send another check.  It was rediculous, but I did, telling her to only cash one of the two checks.

Between Xmas and New Years that year, Korena told me I owed her another big chunk of money right tf now.

I found out I was broke.  She and her daughter had cashed both checks (oops!)

But then she HAD her money, right?

Wrong: The IRS had it.  Instead of paying her to catch me up on taxes, I was paying the IRS 250.00/week.  Korena had taken my boxes of receipts to the IRS and commited me to paying the IRS every penny of what they claimed I owed them.

Over 250k.  250/week for the rest of my life.

...and now she's screaming at me to borrow MORE money from my brother and telling me she has a mortgage to pay!!!

No.  I'm not making any of this up.  Not exaggerating.  Merry fkng Xmas Robert!  Ebineezer Scrooge eat your heart out!

After that, I told her to get me currently not collectable status with the IRS.  She insisted that there was no such program, then obviously did it.

Now, when she screams at me for chickenshit, part of her rap is how she "kept" me "out of jail"!

That's right.  She sells me out to the IRS, signs over an extra 1250.00 check, makes me borrow MORE money from my brother and overnight MORE money to her, and now she does what I tell her to do...and she "kept me out of jail", so I should be grateful, and accept her cruelty and abuse!

How DARE I defend myself!

So already, I am in hell.  But think I can dig myself out.

That wasn't to be.