de puta madre

I sat in the medical center's parking lot, looking at the little machine that might open the gate if I put money in it.  Not credit cards.  Real money, the green stuff, something that I haven't held in my hands for quite a while now.  I backed up, waving some a-hole in a giant SUV to go ahead of me.  I had to think.

I raced home.  Lola's dog walker had an issue and I knew she had been in her crate a really long time.  I pushed the petal down on my hooptie, frantic.

I don't really want to give you real numbers about my personal finances.  It's just kind of embarrassing and seems inappropriate.  Let's just say when my insurance went up eight dollars per paycheck at the beginning of the year, I felt it.  Today, when I saw sixteen dollars more per paycheck gone, because of the 2% payroll tax increase, I sort of freaked out.  That's almost fifty dollars a month.  That is really a lot for me right now.

I entered the house and ran back to our room.  Lola's bed was torn to pieces and she was sitting in pee.  I was horrified.  Lola has never pissed her bed.  She couldn't hold it, and then destroyed the area.  She smelled like pee.  Everything smelled like pee.  She would need a new bed.  Motherfuckers.  My poor dog.  

I could go inside and look for an ATM.  But even if there was one, I knew I didn't have twenty dollars in my account and that I would overdraw it, costing me more money.  I drove around the parking lot.  I had thought that I had seen a gate that looked totally moveable near one end.  I drove toward it, clandestinely.  The gate had a big chain around it.  FUCK.  Hijo de la pinche gran puta. 

I walked from one class to the next, in these odd shoes that I thought might help my formerly sore and broken foot.  I felt the sole slip off and start flapping, loose.  MOTHERFUCKER.

The next day, I received a text from Lola's dog walker that she was ill.  Everyone is.  She wanted to know if she should get someone else to walk Lola.  YES, I texted back.  I knew I couldn't get back, I was at work.  I tried to check in later.  My phone battery was dead. I entered the house, hopeful.  It smelled like dog shit.  Alec walked up from outside with Lola.
"She was sitting in her crate all day with shit!  No one came!"
My poor dog, sitting in a cage next to SHIT all day.  A la fucking chingada. MOTHERFUCKER!

I looked at the low curb of the parking lot.  My '97 Mazda has driven from Atlanta to Tijuana, both ways.  It has been from Tijuana to Los Cabos, both ways.  It has done insanely secret, off road things in the Arizona desert.  It dodged every sinkhole in Tijuana, or muscled right through it.  I drove over the curb, through the grass and between the trees, turned my signal on and carefully pulled into traffic. It was liberating.

Suck your four dollars that I didn't have anyway.