No Plan is Truly Fool-Proof. Louis Shalako.

 Louis Shalako




No plan is truly fool-proof.

This morning, ten after seven, I was squatting in a couple of inches of water, as well as the dark, the cold and the rain. The tire I had plugged yesterday was holding air, so I could jack up the car and put it back on. That took ten or twelve minutes, suffering all the while, and in fact my lower back is stiff and sore. Firing up the vehicle, I got about one block and then the fucking yellow 'check engine' light was on, and the vehicle was running rather rough. All I could do was go around the block and try and get her back in the parking lot before she died. 

This car has something called 'limp home' mode, which is exactly what it says. It will get you home, but she will not start up again. And, just before I got to the entrance to the parking lot...it cleared up and the light went out.

Fuck.

What do we do now? I still needed smokes and gas. So I just continued on up the street, sticking close to home and trying to decide what to do. Money in hand, the engine was still behaving. Turning in the opposite direction, (which coincidentally goes past my building again, just in case of trouble), I went to my regular gas station, where the coffee is cheaper and I get to make it myself--if it's the last of the pot, I might skip it, but today I got a regular sized coffee for about $1.14.

And the car was still behaving normally. The smoke-shack isn't that far away, so I headed on down there, also noting that my rear tire felt like it had about ninety lbs. pressure in there. 

(When I checked it, it was up in the high thirties, which I have since adjusted). Picking up smokes for myself and the fucking neighbour, which always seems like a pain in the ass, (it's not like I don't have other priorities), I decided to sort of angle up towards where the highway passes along the east side of the city. With the engine running fine, there was that point.

That point where you have to commit to the mission.

I committed to going to work, and it is true that I have a cell-phone and roadside assistance. 

And I was afraid. I was afraid of the thing dying on me, and then I have to decide where to tow it. I have no fucking money and the credit card is maxed out.

It's just stress, ladies and gentlemen, but I need that part-time job, and if nothing else, it puts a bit of food in the fridge and buys me a God-damned beer once in a while.

I might have even said a little prayer there--whatever that's worth, coming from an atheist.

Anyways, I got in three hours at the shop, I made it home, and hopefully the thing will get me to the dentist’s office tomorrow and the fucking food bank on Friday.

You guys know I have all kinds of books and stories on Google Play, right.

Image. Louis Shalako. (No, it’s not my car. I wish.)

Thank you for reading. Better yet, thank you for listening.

END

My Fool-Proof Plan. Louis Shalako.

Louis Shalako

Tomorrow looks all fucked up, but I am a mission-oriented person.

I have a plan, not exactly fool-proof. You see, ladies and gentlemen, I had a flat tire the other day.

That is to say, earlier this morning—

Here's what I said on Facebook.

 

"This morning, I had fifteen totes full of dough-balls all set to go. The boss was a bit late, so I stepped outside and saw that the right rear tire was flat. I managed to snap the nuts loose...rain coming down. When I tried jacking it up, the jack was headed for China, as the parking lot at the shop is gravel, very soft in the mild conditions. Luckily, I found a short bit of 2" x 6" in the back forty. It made a big difference, jacking the car up rather than forcing the jack down. Once I had the doughnut spare on, I noticed that I still had my step-dad's tire puncture repair kit, and upon examining the tire, I was fortunate to find a hole, still gushing a bit of air. I managed to get the rasp in and out a few times, twisting and turning it to clean up the hole...I also managed to get a plug through the little slot in the end of the tool, and then I managed to get the plug in and the tool out, as it were...locking up the shop after the boss left, I drove across the street and put a buck's worth of air in it. Checking it later, it seems to be holding air. I will check that again--I have a pressure gauge. And then I will need to find a place to change that back."

" I sure as hell can't do it here in our Lake Steeves & Rozema parking lot."

Yeah, so, anyways, the plan for tomorrow goes something like this: I get up at the crack of dawn, sort of drive the car to a parking lot somewhere that isn’t flooded, and change that fucking tire back from the doughnut to the real one. And then, go to the bank, take out money, go across the street, get some fucking gas and a fucking coffee, and then head down to the smoke shack, get some fucking smokes for me and the fucking neighbour, and then drive to work, hopefully on a tire that I repaired myself and one which is, presumably, still holding pressure.

Wish me luck on that one, but, even driving on that fucking useless, 80-kph, fucking doughnut spare tire, temporary use only, I could still make the smoke-shack, the liquor store…maybe even a tire shop. But honestly, I think it’s fixed.

Oh, yeah, and after all that, I get to go to work, to make the dough.

But here’s the thing. I can still abort—take Wednesday off. Go to the dentist appointment first thing Thursday morning sort of thing…wait for the fucking parking lot to dry out a bit here in this Steeves and Rozema Residential Apartment Building.

In that sense, I really am kind of my own boss, with a fair amount of day-to-day latitude.

#superdough

Here I am on fucking Smashwords.

Thank you for reading.

Payday Loan Scam Still Going Strong In Ontario. Louis Shalako.

Louis Shalako

Simple charity will never be the solution to poverty. The problem is simply too great, too pervasive.

There are too many reasons. There is no one, single cause of poverty in this province and this country.

The subject is so complex, it is best to tackle the reasons one at a time.

***

The payday loan scam is still going strong here in Ontario, presumably in the rest of Canada as well.

This is the one, where people who are already well below the poverty line, whether working full or part-time, on the Ontario Disability Support Program or the so-called Ontario Works benefit, (welfare), the elderly, the mentally-ill, and yes, the addicts and the alcoholics, line up to borrow a hundred bucks, perhaps a couple of hundred, in order to make it through the month.

Sometimes it’s some small, unexpected emergency, a car repair or the kids need clothes for school. There are certainly legitimate reasons for a small, short-term loan in the family household.

Whatever. Ultimately, the scammers are taking the taxpayer’s money out of the mouths of the hungry.

My neighbour went to a so-called ‘cash-store’ last month. She says she went twice. She borrowed a total of $220.00, and at the end of the month, when she got her ODSP benefit, she repaid a total of $273.00.

The total term of the loans were less than two weeks. That is fifty-three dollars and some small change on a loan of a couple of hundred bucks, for less than two weeks. These interest rates are usurious, and the worst part, is, she’s starting off the next month, almost three hundred dollars down—in a hole, and her total benefit is the provincial disability benefit of $1,151.00 per month. She doesn't actually get all of that, due to some help from CMHA.

She’s on disability. The Canadian Mental Health Association kicks in on the rent, I don’t know how much because she doesn’t either. She’s out on a Community Treatment Order. Her social worker shows up every day to make sure she takes her medications, otherwise its back to hospital for her—maybe even permanently, although her illness seems to respond well to continuing treatment.

She’s back there every month, (I mean the cash store), and this has been going on for years. 

Basically, they’re like pimps, living off the avails of someone else’s disability pension. Sure, its nickel-and-dime shit, but they got a lot of them.

I told her, that if she could just stay away from there for as little as two months, she would have beaten them.

(This coming from a guy who maxes out the credit card every winter when things are slow, and never quite gets it paid off in summer, when things are a bit busier. The yearly rate on the credit card is 28 %, which seems more than high enough. Yet compared to the so-called payday loan operations, it seems almost benign. But it isn't, not really.)

This business is so lucrative, that the money stores have sprung up like mushrooms after a summer rain.

There must be twenty of them in this town, and that is in a city (Sarnia) of only 72,000.

***

I know a couple of guys, they got sucked into transferring their credit card balances to a service provider offering a much lower interest rate. It was an introductory rate—less than half of what they were paying.

It worked so well, that they ended up transferring their balances around about every six months…and they signed up for a handful of new credit cards as well. After all, it was so much easier to make the payments, and they were both working. 

Naturally, sooner or later, they ran into trouble. A layoff, a slowdown in the work, illness, a bad break. They were always maxed out and therein lies the problem.

Ultimately it turned into a bad debt for all parties. Their credit was destroyed, and the debt was ultimately uncollectable. When all this occurred, they were so enthusiastic, they sucked a few others in as well. Oh, yes, they told me all about it. The thing practically sold itself. 

Anyone that could get credit, that is, and there are a few who can’t, and never will.

It was good for nobody, in the end—not everyone ends up like that, of course. Some people smarten up and learn the credit game in the end. Maybe they just didn’t have so many bad habits. Maybe they’re just lucky. Maybe they’re continuously employed somewhere…in which case they can make the payments.

Once you scratch the surface of the problem, it quickly becomes clear that the solution to poverty requires a plan, one that takes into account all aspects of the problem. A plan that attacks from all directions at once, a plan that involves all levels of government, federal, provincial, regional, county and municipal. It will require the cooperation of certain institutions, banks, business, commerce, industry, and private NGOs.

It has to involve the individual as well.

This plan will require some very well thought-out tools and an enlightened, long-term policy that all can commit to.

END

Image: Fair use of one sort or another.

Notice how I got all these books and stories available from Amazon.

Thank you for reading.