Home Alone

So with my beautiful bride far away in Romania I'm left home alone. Pretty boring being home alone. Luckily I keep getting more and more work. I had five days of work lined up during the 16 days Swell is MIA but in the last 12 hours I've picked up another day and a half. We can really use the money so I'm happy although I really don't want to do the work.

Tomorrow I get to drive 34 miles to a Wal-Mart in Hiram, GA. It breaks my soul just a little every time I park in a Wal-Mart parking lot and walk into the optical there. I HATE working at Wal-Mart. It is the worst. I went to school for 10 years to work in Wal-Mart. I don't think anyone should have to work at Wal-Mart in any position but tomorrow I'll be there.

I wonder if I'll get roughed up by the greeter like I did when I worked at a Wal-Mart in Salem, OR. He literally grabbed me, which they are not supposed to do, thinking I was stealing something. After grabbing me he gave me a quick stare down and discussed things in a hushed tone. I told him what was what and from that day forward he referred to me as the pharmacist. Idiot.

I'm driving these 34 miles in the midst of a gas shortage. What is a gas shortage you might ask.

Well a gas shortage is when 9 out of 10 gas stations have NO GAS! Those stations that do have gas have cars lined up 5 deep at every pump snarling traffic on the nearby roads. They limit the amount of gas you can put in your car and require prepayment inside the store - no using the card machines on the pumps.

Yesterday I drove by a station that was just getting a shipment of gas. Cars were already lining up and the delivery truck was still pulling into position. I went back there a few hours later as my tank was nearing empty. They only had regular gas (like I'd pay for anything else) and it was a zoo. The cashier was not having a good day as it was so busy. I got the maximum allowed $40 (which filled my tank) and was on my way.

Driving by the station today I made the startling realization that they have no gas again. I've heard it might be a couple more weeks before our gas shortage is over.

Zambia.

So it was Zambia that I was hoping to go to. It was the fastest rejection of my life. I found the job. I emailed the person it said to email. She emailed back saying that she forwarded said email to her US counterpart. I waited a week. I emailed the US counterpart ensuring she received my CV. She hadn't. She phoned and said position is no longer available. They filled it? No. They just aren't going to fill it. Oh well. I'm slowly resolving myself to the fact that I'll be working commercial optometry (read Wal-Mart and its ilk) for the rest of my working life. The woman asked me to resend my CV and she would distribute it to see if anyone else within the organization needed someone with my skills (of which she didn't seem impressed).

C'est la vie. If I didn't have these astronomical loans I could take an entry level grunt position but someone with as much education debt as I have (three degrees of which only one left me in the overwhelming debt) can't be the gopher for an organization for $15,000/year (to be completely honest I pay more than that to service my loans every year).

So I'm disappointed to not even get an interview but not devastated. When Swell comes back we have a week in Edmonton, a week in Atlanta and then a week in San Diego.

While in Edmonton we are meeting with an immigration lawyer to learn what emigrating to Canada would entail (the US is about to implode and probably wouldn't be a great place to open a practice although the greater Seattle area is still in the running). We are also going to spend a couple of days in Calgary to see what its like there - I think Swell would prefer Calgary to Edmonton - its far enough from and close enough to my crazy family. (No that's not really the reason. Mountains. Chinooks. Etc. is the real reason).

While in Atlanta we'll decide whether or not to slash our condo price or just take it off the market.

In San Diego we'll decide what the next year will entail.

So that's it for now.

Tomorrow its Wal-Mart, Saturday the Mall, Tuesday the Strip mall, Friday back to Wal-Mart with more strip malls and malls to follow. Good thing I don't care that I'm a "doctor" - in fact I don't even introduce myself as doctor to patients anymore. I just don't care and neither do they. I could be a rabid monkey as long as I handed them a prescription at the end of the exam they'd be happy.

What I won't do for money!