The words I write today are part of a series I think I may find myself blogging about. Why call it recession confession? Because only in a recession would I confess such personal matters and issues. I would love to say that the great Ben Free is just trying to stay above water like a lot of you out there. That was the case up until I got fired from my job by my ego tripping, power crazed, ungrateful ex cousin who shall remain nameless. Just know that he's a few ounces short of a 40. The fact of the matter is I'm drowning as you read this. I haven't made a dollar in over a month. On top of that, I had no money saved up because all of this happened at the end of the month, which meant my rent and car payment were due at the beginning of the month. The only fortunate thing about that was it was my final car payment. Add to that a previous employed lifestyle of living check to check and it equals broke ass nigga. FACT: you can't afford to miss a check if you live check to check. After everything was said and done, I was left with only $200 to my name. After a month of stretching that as far as I possibly could, the inevitable happened. This past Sunday I spent my last $6.00 on the tank. Do I even have to tell you the gas light was on, or does that go with out saying? Mind you, I haven't been driving my car this whole moth as well. Why you ask? Well see if you can follow this. I went to your favorite place and mines, the DMV. (insert twilight zone music) Is it me or do some really weird people work there? It takes a special breed of human to get hired. My personal theory is every one there got the same question wrong that regular people would get right on the test to get the job.(stop the twilight zone music) I went to reregister the car with that same last $200 from before because my registration expired last month. I couldn't reregister because my current registration was expired plus suspended(which i had no idea) because i couldn't afford to buy and maintain insurance previously because i was living check to check for so long trying to stay above water. Did we get all that? if not, place index finger underneath the sentence you need to start at and move to the right as you read it again at a slower pace out loud to your self.
After spending all month looking for jobs on Craig's List and various other sites, I've had no luck yet. Remember I don't drive anymore so I can't do it the good old fashion way, just going to every place you think you want to work at see if they're hiring even if there is not a hiring sign posted. (the classifieds are a joke as well) My older and always struggling living for income tax season sister reminded of an option I think I purposely forgot about. LABOR READY. What's this you ask. It's basically one of those "work today get paid today" agencies. I swear I've spent my whole working adult life trying to stay away from this place. I see people all the time holding signs on the streets saying "such and such is going out business 50% off" and other jobs i said i would never do. No I don't think I am better than any other human being on this planet. It's just everything is not for everybody. You gotta get it how you live. I know where they got this work from, one place and one place only. LABOR READY. Here's the dilemma. I need money so I can get the hell out Connecticut and get on with the next chapter of my child free life. So since this is the first time ever I haven't had a side hustle (photography, third man help with my cousins, drill gun for hire, box truck for hire, used appliance for sale, dump runs ) I can't figure out how to make some cash. Time is running out. I have a month to get up as much cash as possible before the shit hits the fan. So I woke up this morning at 6:30 a.m. with no options to confront a very personal fear. LABOR READY. I was on my out the door to see if they had some work me, and got detoured by mom dukes. She enlightened me to the snow storm outside and said wait until tomorrow, it wasn't worth it today. Seeing as how I think my fearful fate would have been to hold some miscellaneous sign in the snow and rain, I agreed and went back to my room proceeded to look for some real work paying some real cash. The funny thing is tomorrow is right around the corner. Due to the fact I haven't found some employment today, that's still my only legal option right now. That word legal has been looking very suspect these days. I'm 29 years old with no criminal record and never had a wish or real enough reason to try get money off the streets. Even when it was the thing to do in the 90's. Whether it's robbing and stealing or straight selling drugs. I always knew it was a dead end literally. I know a lot of people who chose that route and regret it to this day. The ones who are alive anyway. Everyday that other side of the game runs thru my head. It's weird to even sit here and even entertain the thoughts. But I do. Ultimately, I know that I won't resort to that shit, because I overstand this is just a bad time right now. I have complete faith in the creator and divine intervention. I know this is a temporary situation. I'll be back on top in a minute once again. It's called KNOWLEDGE OF SELF PRESERVATION and I will survive. This is my recession confession. BEN FREE signing off.
