It's Not Freaking Fair!

What about me!

Today I am going to have a mega whinge. Because I think I am bloody well due for one, and because even though I can complain with the best of you, I'm not one for sulking about my situation day after day, or carrying around a great big "It's everyone elses fault" chip on my shoulder.

The reason behind this is that I have been waiting for my pay from my new job for four days after they said they paid it.

I've reached the limit of my "last resort" meals and ways to conjure up $4 for a bottle of milk. We have not eaten bread for six days. I seriously need that pay.

Why haven't I been paid? Because some people can't tell the difference between a Super Choice form and a bank account number. I hadn't given them my bank account number, but assumed I had and had forgotten because I was told I'd been paid. Cue the waiting for several days and hoping like hell the bank would sort out it's shit and drop some money into my severely depleted account.

Today I have woken up with an overdrawn bank account, no milk, bread, meals, eggs, or nappies in the house, and a FINAL DEMAND letter on my doorstep.

FFS - I'm seriously on the edge because this is just the latest in a life long series of cock ups that I have no control over.

To give you an idea of why I'm so deseperately upset over this last one, let's take a look at some of the things that have happened to me over the last ten years.... and for which I am not actually responsible (yes I know, it sounds like one of those It-couldn't-possibly-be-my-fault scenarios but please bear with me and try to understand).

I was a single mother for quite a few years, after suffering an extremely abusive relationship for two years before that. Which meant I was the number 1 customer of good old Centrelink (social security for those overseas) for quite a time. Even when I was working full time and child care brought up Tiger, I still had to report earnings and fill in forms every fortnight to receive my very much needed top up which meant we had clothes on our backs instead of flour sacks.

During 8 years of dealing with Centrelink, they have randomly cut off my payments with no warning and no apparent reason at least 30 times. I'm not kidding you. When I was relying on benefits and desperately searching for a job (because I HATE living on welfare, and refused to be that feral girl we all know, chewing gum, smoking and swearing and whining about the government not paying me enough to sit on my arse) they cut my payments off at least five times in six months. I spent my entire life on the phone to their call centres trying to find out what the hell was going on.

When all you have is a meagre benefit going into your account every fortnight, it has to be there on time. There's no chance for mucking about. If it's not there, you can't pay your rent and the eviction notices start arriving. You can't do the shopping so your child survives on rice bubbles and scrambled eggs for a week, which doesn't make for a happy toddler. You sit in the dark because the power company couldn't care if you have been paid or not. The phone company cuts you off so you can't ring Centrelink to find out why you are starving. It's not fun. At one point I got so sick of them telling me I hadn't filled in a form I had never been sent, that was completely unrelated to my situation, and I had in desperation filled in and posted, faxed and filled in on the internet at least three times - that I put my last $20 in my car and drove the 200km (one way mind you) to the closest Centrelink office and delivered it by hand. I got a letter the next week saying I was no longer eligible because I hadn't filled in the form. And it would be six weeks before I could apply for more benefits. You can imagine my reaction.

Years later and they still stop paying me my family allowance randomly without warning whenever they feel like it. It's a complete joke.

Despite my Centrelink troubles I scrimped and saved my heart out to buy a car, because it was getting ridiculous trying to push a pram the 1km from my house to the street in the pouring rain. On the day I bought my car I took it for a drive as I had an appointment in the next town, and 15 minutes into the trip it blew up the engine completely with no warning.

The car dealership I had picked it up from that morning "didn't have time" to send their tow truck to get me. My father had to close his business to waste hours towing me back to town at 40km an hour.

Then they wanted me to pay for the replacement engine, despite them obviously not doing the "thorough vehicle check" they assured me had shown no issues. I came to an agreement about the amount I was willing to pay towards a brand new engine, and ate at my mothers for two weeks to afford it.

Two days after I got it back it started making an awful noise and I discovered the front wheel was about to fall off, after they reused some very essential locking nuts that are meant to be thrown away after you break the lock.

Six months later my "brand new engine" blew up. Then my clutch.

Good luck to the guy I sold it to, he probably never made it home!

My next car was bought by my then partner, after taking out a substantial joint loan that refinanced his existing car loan and added the new car to it. Fine, except that I never wanted the bloody awful station wagon, and it was cursed with more problems that I can count, and none of which were ever fixed despite my partner being a mechanic, and the car being bought from the dealership at which he worked. It regularly ran out of fuel while telling me it had half a tank to go. It performed strange movements when attempting to turn left. And the gearbox had a gremlin which shifted all the gears into a different order as it wished. All this in a car less than ten years old!

He spent hours and hours over a year apparently "playing with my car to see if he could fix it". I have a funny feeling he was playing with anything he could get his hands on, except for the gearbox that so desperately needed fixing.

During the break up, I got left with the car, and the entire loan, which included the $4000 we had refinanced form his car. Four years on and I am still paying it. I was forced to refinance after he insisted on ringing up and requesting a mailed statement on the account every week (at a cost of $25 a pop). After two months of that malarky I had lost my patience.

My car dies regularly about every six months. And because we own two cars this means approximately the time I finish paying the mechanics bill for the first car I am three months late on the bill for the second one and the first dies again.

Tiger's school sneakers disintergrated a couple of weeks ago, a week before I started working and the same fortnight that I paid all my bills up to date, and rationed every potion of food in the house so that we didn't get into serious financial trouble. The cheapest pair I could find were $50. I had an overdrawn bank account, and no shoes to put on my child's feet so she could go to school. SuperGranny stepped in to help, otherwise Tiger would have spent two days at home with a "cold" until payday.

Even though we have medicare I have just received a bill that is 60 days overdue (despite never receiving the original bill) for a trip to the A & E at the hospital and an xray on WonderMan's hand. Including a charge for "overtime". A & E visits are supposed to be fully covered by Medicare, and should not be charged through the doctor's surgery. It's a public frickin hospital for heaven's sake! Apparently I owe them $291 ($170 of it the overtime charge) and have seven days to pay even though I've never seen it before.

This fortnight I only did a week's shopping and paid all the bills because I knew my new job's pay would go in at some time about in the middle of the pay fortnight. It's the end of the fortnight tomorrow and I haven't got my pay and even http://www.supercook.com/ has run out of recipes for me to create with the one potato and two eggs I have in the house.

WHY IS IS ALWAYS FREAKING ME??

You would think that after ten years something would go right occasionally.

 But there are a million more examples I can give you, and with the knowledge that if it can't be fixed today I have to go and suck up to SuperGranny for a little help (AGAIN) you will understand why I've had quite a major "IT'S NOT FAAAAAAIIIIIRRRR!" meltdown this morning.

If it can go wrong for me it will. For those of you who have lived throught he new computer saga with me you will understand my meaning.

It will rain when my hair is perfect. I will be going out when it sticks up like a deranged cockatoo.

Frog will decide to crawl on the wet lawn when I was supposed to be at work ten minutes ago, and will walk down the road instead of getting in the damn car to go to daycare. Then the daycare ladies will frown at me, and no doubt ring me up halfway through the day, to tell me Frog is sick and I must collect her, and when I get her home realise she is not sick at all they are just bitches.

The amount of money in my purse decreases phenominally every time Tiger has something she has to pay for at school, in relation to how many minutes late she is.

The tax office finds some way of taking my entire tax return every year, despite everyone I know who is in relatively the same situation getting thousands. What the F*** did I ever do to those ATO pricks?

We will have to PAY WonderMan's work to allow him to take holidays after the million times he has taken time off for various illnesses, injuries, and random "supposedly helping me but causing blood vessels to burst instead" moments.

My doctor pays no attention to anything I have to say and isists I am just FAT. I am a little overweight, I am working on that quite seriously, but that has no relation to the insane symptoms I have been telling him about for six months. My former doctor now practices 400kms away and I will have to go to him just to get some help. Because I really have the time or money to take a trip like that for a half hour doctor's consult..... yeah.

It's Not Fair. And that's all I have to say.