I don’t want to say, “poor.” I prefer to say, “broke.”

It really only just hit me today how much more fatalistic, “poor,” sounds. It has more of a sense of permanence. At least, “broke,” has a connotation of fixable.

Either way I’m sick of having a mostly one way cash flow: into the deposit door and it keeps going right on through the withdrawal door.

I just rounded up my half of the rent. That left me with 19 bucks till my next payday, which is Friday. That’s not the final balance. I have a check I wrote to Publix floating and about to land-probably Monday. It’s for $15.98. The math is obvious.

When I awoke today I found that Sprouts had called me to work 10-4. I texted the head cashier, who left the message, to tell her I wouldn’t be able to. Abdominal pain but, even worse than that, right now, I flat out don’t have the gas, or the money to buy it, for two shifts.

I work 4-9 tomorrow and my tank was just above a quarter of a tank. After getting rent together I scraped 4 bucks together to get gas at Circle K. There were notes on the pumps announcing they only had diesel and premium grade gas. I bet it’s because of that damn tanker that got wedged in the Suez Canal. Oh yay, fuel that will not go as far. Ooh, I still have 3 bucks in my checking account.

In happier news: I won a free Fantasy 5 ticket last night. I got that while I plunked down my gas money in three singles and coins at the Circle K.

All my shifts this week are crappy little ones but, that’s probably good because I will get snack breaks and can chow off the free snacks in the breakroom. However, most likely I will have to resort to writing a nebulous check at Publix because I won’t have gas money. It takes a check written to Publix four days to clear. My paycheck hits at Midnight Thursday night/Friday morning.

I really hate doing this but, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

I’m going to drive to work tomorrow and the gas I have will barely get me to and from work. I may even have to use the last $3 in my account to get home. I have off on Monday so, I don’t have to worry about my fuel level.

I’m keeping my sense of humor by semi-watching, “Police Woman,” on the Decades network. It’s a marathon. Ahh, the 1970’s.

This was a breakthrough television show. A female police detective? Almost scandalous. I do love bell bottoms-still. It’s so humorous.

Cars were tanks back then. Talk about gas mileage. Damn, it sucked back then but, no one cared because gas was, like, 67 cents a gallon.

I just paid almost $3 per gallon.

Pepper, police woman’s nickname was just talking to her boss on a…pay phone. Before she ended her call, her boss was telling her to keep him updated,”…just drop a dime and let me know…”

That’s hilarious, not only because pay phones existed but, that it was only 10 cents for a local call. By the time pay phones began to go extinct in the late 1990’s, I’m pretty sure local calls were 25-50 cents, depending upon locality and phone company.

Yes, kids, these are pay phones. The bottom one is a phone booth. Most pay phones were booths. Then, I guess phone companies consulted their accountants who informed the big wigs that money could be saved by using the edition above.

Police Woman, Pepper, was in a phone booth.

Oh, how technology has changed. I’m sitting here writing this on my cell phone. No one could do that on a pay above.