The $73 Burrito

Well, not much new to report at present- job situation still in flux, finances questionable- and apparently scraping a curb while turning is enough to blow out a tire, so leaving Taco Bell, I incurred another $72 expense I didn't need getting a new tire. As it turns out, the car jack I had was a worthless thing which warped as I jacked it up, eventually having the top half leaning at 45 degrees, ready to collapse and drop the car on me at any moment- after jacking it up twice on that deathtrap and not being confident enough to work with those conditions, I had to sit in the Wawa parking lot for an hour or so, panhandling new arrivals to borrow their car jack- of course, I was two stores down from a trie place... but they were closed for the weekend.
Finally, a tattoo-covered burly fellow with a big truck that I almost didn't approach turned out to be a good Samaritan, luckily having kept in his car by accident a jack to small for it, but small enough to be used for mine. Turns out he was a tire guy himself, and was able to help me imensly. I continued on to New Jersey with a 'doughnut' tire- a max speed of 50 MPH rating, which as you can imagine made me EXTREMELY popular with other drivers, especially on the freeway!

Finally, on Sunday, I was able to go down to Pep Boys to purchase a tire for $72- Sarah Harrison came to keep me company, which made the ordeal a bit less frustrating- and the clerk afterwards apparently saw me coming from a mile away...
"Andrew Gilbertson?"
"Yes."
"Here are your keys... that'll be $572."
"WHAT?!"
*Clerk and Sarah crack up laughing*
"Just messin' with you, man- that'll be $72."

Thankfully, the hospital bill expenses for the treatment of a heart attack were narrowly avoided.

So, at present, I am continuing on- I have a second video interview tomorrow, and still negotiationg (rather unsucessfully) with the original job opportunity over wage conditions, which are difficult; my total gross is a liveable wage, but as they are planning on giving me about 5/6ths of that total wage plus medical and dental benefits equal to the last half, I am actually looking at a wage that is slightly less than feasible for independant living- UNLESS I were to save about $200 a month by ceasing to tithe... which I have to say is one heck of a test of character to have to go through if that turns out to be the case. But since dropping my tithe isn't an option, I am continuing to pray that God will either allow some loophole where I CAN exchange the benefits for the extra equivalent cash (which they are balking at) or that He will open something up with this other video job which is not quite geographically where I'd like it, but... if it can earn me a living, then I would jump at the chance!

And so, for this week, as Dorris Day said, "That's all for now, Vladimir."