Bloobity-Bloobity-Blah-Blah

Today, I am neither outraged nor am I offended nor am I excited. Therefore, I do not have anything on my mind that I really want to write about.

Yesterday was the most exciting payday ever. We got our checks and, like we all expected, our COLA was not included. However, our union dues were increased anyway. My paycheck this month was $13 less than last month's. Other people had more money taken from their checks. (I heard a rumor that one lady's dues jumped from $40 to $70!) I'm okay with this because right now $13 doesn't make that big of a difference in my daily life. (Although it would be nice to have that extra $13 in my bank account.) Way back at the beginning of the year the union said it was raising the dues, but would hold off until the July paycheck because of the COLA. I wasn't surprised to see the extra taken out. Everyone else seemed to be. And they're all really pissed because now they took home less this month than last month when this was supposed to be the first month of an increase. There was lots of cursing coming out of the mouths of the older ladies. Not funny cursing, but the real stuff--fuck, shit, cocksucker's in Sacramento--pouring out. One lady called up the union and said she wants to be dropped from the membership. Not just the little extra we pay to get to vote, but entirely from the membership. She said she'd negotiate her own contract from now on and the union could go fuck itself. (No mention of a cactus, though.)

I thought the whole thing was absurd, and funny. I'm in the minority, though.

The budget crunch probably isn't going to be solved this month, either. I asked around about how long they'll keep paying us before the expect us to show up and not get paid if there's no budget, I was told four or five months. So, I'll have cash for Christmas! And even if I don't, at least I have job security, right?

Other than that, what else is there to write? I don't know. I've been doing a pretty good job of shutting my brain down once I get back to my place. I don't really rememb--

Wait, I just thought of something. Monday night, as I was walking back to the stairs after leaving my trash can at the curb, my neighbor came over and asked me if her husband could borrow my car to drive to work for the rest of the week. It seems the squeal of the belts in their car has started getting to them and he wanted to oil a guide wheel, or replace it, or something, but it was on too tight and my car was the perfect way for him to get to work because they didn't want to spend money on a taxi. I said no without any thought and then fed them some bullshit about how I really only think of my car as a once a week car. Mostly I don't want him driving it because I don't know them at all, beyond their first names and apartment number. Also, he smokes like crazy and it's pretty safe to assume that he's one of those people who thinks that if he has the driver's window down no one else will be able to smell the smoke. Guess what happened. He got the thing fixed. Amazing.

And I'm done.

Life, everyone.