Diary of a Broke-ass Chapter 3

When we left off last Jane and I were on our way to Eureka... so it continues...

Chapter 3:

EUREKA! We sold Jack shit!

We were on the road. It was Jane her daughter Rachel, their dog lucky and me. We stopped twice on the way out to Eureka. To let lucky out and smoke. About thirty minutes after the second stop we made I felt a sharp pain in my lower thigh. I thought it made be a wacky nerve or something so I rubbed and scratched it. But it would not go away. It started throbbing. At this point I thought that I may have gotten a sticker or something in my clothes when we stopped on the side of the road. So I tried to feel for something where the pain was. It did not feel like a sticker. Something was stuck on my skin. With a sinking feeling it came to me that it was a tick.

As soon as we got into Arcada we went though a drive through for lunch. And I jumped out and ran to the bathroom. And there it was! The little bastard. A tick right there on the lower, inner side of my thigh. And by this point pain was radiating my whole leg.

I know what you are thinking. “What a drama queen. Tick bites don't hurt that bad.” Or, “I have had ticks on me and didn't even know they were there. What a pussy!” And you would be right. But this was not a normal tick bite. I have had tick bites before this. And they never, and I mean never, felt like this. It actually hurt so bad I started limping.

I called my husband freaking out. I can't deal with ticks. They creep me out. He said to calm down and get some tweezers, grab a hold of the little sucker and twist counter clockwise till its out. Then kill it. And if I couldn't do that the lite a match and hold it up to his butt. And the little bitch should back out on it own. These two tricks I knew already. I just was

not prepared to handle these tasks. Not to mention that it was in a very awkward spot for me to manage on my own. I know this might not sound very empowering for woman. But we just need Men for some things. And there were no men with us on this trip. I tried to do it on my own. The little sucker kept slipping out of my tweezers because I was afraid to gab it to hard and kill it. I didn't have matches, so I lit a stick on fire till it was red hot at the tip. The touched it to the tick. It didn't budge. The legs crinkled up like it had died. But it was still in my leg! After Jane was settled into her motel room I had her take me to the hospital. Thank God they took me right away. But just because it was a quick fix. That hospital was teaming with people. I over heard a lady who had been there for 4 hours and had not been seen yet. The doctor just pulled it straight out. They were concerned about Lyme Disease, and so was I. So they gave me a prescription for antibiotics and a Tetanus shot. Three weeks latter found out this hospital visit cost me about $1,000.

By the time I got back to the motel it was already dark. So we already lost one day in Eureka. It was frustrating. But we still had high hopes. According to everyone Eureka was suppose to be a gold mine for sales.

The next day we got in on the first knock and sold it. However it was a financed deal. I think we got into four more demos, but only two full demos. And no more sales. Saturday we were getting desperate again. We were suppose to leave to go back to Redding Sunday. There was a huge fiasco between Jack and Jane about how much the motel was costing. I was to move into Jane's room for the last night to cut costs. I would have called ahead and found the cheapest place to stay. But Jack had told us to go to a specific motel. They were suppose to be the best price. His friend and partner stayed there before. So we just went straight there. It ended up to be $60 for a single (me), and around $80 for Jane and her daughter's double bed room. That was too much for them to spend. When I moved into Jane's room somehow a pair of my pants got left behind. I still don't know

how it happened. Because I kept all my things in my bags. And I checked all the drawers even tho I knew I hadn't put anything in them. The cleaning lady walked right into Jane's room to make sure I had my pants. The do not disturb sign was on the door, and Rachel, Jane's daughter, was in there alone with Lucky. The cleaning lady didn't call. She didn't knock. She just walked right in. That is bad enough as it is. But there was a “no pets allowed” rule. And they charged and extra $200 for Lucky.

Now everyone was freaked out. Jack, his partner Phil and Jane. This road trip was costing a lot of money. After a brief meltdown, we started hitting the pavement again. We were determined to make two more sales before we left. Then all of this would have been worth it. And at this point we were running out of money. There would be no gas money to get back to Redding if we didn't sell.

After about another hour of knocking we finally got into a full demo. And they bought! We had a check for $2,900. The problem was it was after 3:00pm on a Saturday. Most of the banks would be closed. And the check was drawn from a credit union. I called around and found a branch opened in the local mall. Perfect. We had a huge feeling of relief.

It is policy at any bacnk to call if someone is cashing a check over a certain amount. Which the teller did. Everything was fine. So the teller when to get the Manager to cash it. This is where things went wrong yet again. The Manager decided to call them a second time. This is not normal. At this point Jane and I start to get nervous. However everything checked out again. She was walking over to cash it, then turned around and called them again! We could hear the Manager asking the customers over the phone how they knew Jane. After that conversation was over she called them yet again! This was unbelievable. Finally the teller came back up and said the people don't want you to cash this check. Are hearts sank. We wasted so much time. We were hungry and tired. So we got some food, then went back to work. We got in 2 more demos. No sales. No money. We were

screwed. We had the one finance deal. But we wouldn't get funded on that for another week.

We went back to the motel that night feeling defeated. We didn't know how we were getting back to Redding. We called Jack to find out what we were going to do. On top of the problem of gas for the trip back, Jane had nowhere to go sleep when she got back to Redding. She and her daughter were homeless. Altho Jack said they were out of money, they could not leave us stranded. So the wired some money to us in the morning. We were so happy to leave. But it was really hard getting all the money that they wired us. Many of the Western Unions in town were down. So we had to get it at Longs. Longs will only cash out $200 of it. And give you a check for the rest. Nobody would cash a Western union check from Longs. But we had enough money to get back to Redding. And I found a place in Redding that cashed the check for Jane. We never wanted to see Eureka ever again.

It also turned out that the finance deal was turned down. So the whole trip was a wash.

To be continued with the thrilling conclusion of my vacuum sales career.  look forward to: Chapter 4 part 1.