Read My Lips - the blog

In my Life*

OK, this day surely did not turn out to be the kind of day I hoped it would be. I had hoped to take off tomorrow and Monday, have a 4 day weekend and go on a road trip. I had even posted such here earlier, Then the shit hit the fan. Let me give you a bit of the back story.

About a year ago, this lady who is related to my good friend Frank comes by and says she would like to work for me because she is bored and needs something to do. At the time, I was not making all that much, and I could not afford to pay anyone to assist me. No problem, she says, as she has a financial situation where she gets $2000 a month. I will not go into that part of the story as it is not important. Anyway, I said, sure, come in and start working. Well, right from the start there is a problem, as she has no transportation and lives a bit outside the town. As she was working for free, I was not all that worried about it, but it seemed to bother her a lot. I would go out every morning and drive her in, if possible. Things went all right for the first few weeks, and then she started missing work fairly regularly as she seemed to have some illness that no one could figure out. The doctors kept telling her she had an ulcer, and that was about as far as it went. About this time, I started having problems with my car, mostly because my A/C was not working. The problem was found, but what it was, was that the compressor worked, but the switch was broken. Well, we priced the switch, and it was about $300, so I asked him if there wasn't a way to just put a toggle switch somewhere so that I could just manually turn on the compressor when needed. I had actually done this before for a couple of other switch problems on other vehicles to fix the horn and headlights. So he rigged it up. However, somehow it was rigged up to draw straight from the battery instead of only working when the ignition was switched on. I was regularly forgetting to flick the compressor off and I would come out every morning and finding my battery was dead. I did finally get the mechanic to redo the connection so that it would not be live unless the ignition was on, but by that time the battery was fried. So off to Wally-mart I go to get a new battery. I come right back, intending to have him check all the circuits to make sure we got that problem fixed when this guy pulls up with this Lincoln Town Car who gets out and asks if the mechanic knows anyone interested in buying it for $4K. It was a very nice car, and much better than the one I was driving. I said I was, and took it on a test drive and bought it.

So, here is where the problem started. I decided since I had a spare car, I would allow the lady to use mine so as to get back and forth to work. The deal was that only she could drive it and that she had to maintain insurance on it. Her medical condition got worse and she came to work less and less as she was spending more and more time going to the doctor. They finally found that she had a grapefruit-sized cyst on her pancreas and that there was something wrong with her gall-bladder. So she had surgery. They removed the gall-bladder and drained the pancreas cyst and she was hospitalized for about a month. She actually comes back to work before she was told to, but that does not last long. She is still feeling bad. Soon she is back in the hospital, the cyst turns out to be a tumor, thought to be benign and they remove her spleen. Later they find she has cancer, really severe cancer. She had had it all along. She never comes back to work, but I cannot really take the car, because she does need it to get around. I soon find, however, that a couple of parts have been stolen off of the car and someone has broken out the window on the drivers side. I am not happy, but still, I feel some compassion for her problem.

About this time, her 19-year-old daughter moves to town and wants to take over as my secretary. She does need to be paid. She has a young baby. I agree to hire her, but also agree that she has to work for a bit less than she might get at another job but is free to bring the baby. This is no problem. Her mother actually keeps the baby at first, but then her health really fails and the baby begins showing up at the office more and more often. However the young lady is very hard worker and seems to like her job. She is there on time and works until closing time. Then she confronts me and says she needs a bit more money. I think, OK, she deserves it, so I raise her salary a bit. Then she needs more and more time off for this and that, then wants Fridays off. Still, she gets things done when she is there and it is less important that she is there when I am there. I mean, I am paying peanuts, practically, although she is probably eating better than I am. Still I don't feel bad about paying her.

Well, a couple of weeks ago, her sister and brother come in from California, because mom is failing fast. At one time, they are saying she is moving in with her mom in Galveston so she can be treated at M.D. Anderson. I pass along word that I do not want them taking my car when they move. I am not sure what happened at that point, but I think my secretary told her that she would not move down there. Anyway, she decided not to move.

Well, I kept noticing my secretary's brother was driving my car here and there. I know there is not any insurance on the car. I am still aware it is the only car that my former secretary had, but I am very uncomfortable with the car being regularly used without being insured.

Today, the straw that broke the camel's back hit. The brother, who seemed to begin hanging around the office taking up more and more of my secretary's time said something about going to the next town over, but was afraid to drive mom's car because there was something wrong with it, and I got a bit agitated. They are not only driving around without insurance, which creates a liability issue for me, but they are not maintaining the car and are destroying it. I say something about it and the brother says something about how I had given the car to his mother in exchange for her working for me. I had heard that once before, and it was not true. I have the title to that car, there was a distinct arrangement and I started raising my voice and growing quite angry. This was right at quitting time, after I had announce my plans to my secretary.

Well, I decided, devil-may-care, I am not going to be robbed, made a fool of, or whatever. I go by my secretary's house, to let her know that this problem was going to be dealt with so I could see where her loyalties would fall. They fell where I thought, and she quit. I still don't have the car, but my secretary came by a few minutes ago and gave me the door and mailbox key. I said something about the car and she said she was going by her mother's house to tell them to bring it over to my house. She and her family are going back to Galveston with her grandmother for a few days, she said. I never did tell her what I had planned to do if the car was not brought back. I hope they do bring it back, because I would hate to have her come back and find out what my continency plan is. It will not be a happy situation for any of them. Regrettably mom is expected to die within the month. I regret this and regret what has occurred, but her suffering should not mean I have to do so. The brother seemed to be quite reckless, and having him running around in my car with no insurance having no regard for my rights was just a bit more than I could stomach. I can only give so much, and then I have to draw the line. I drew the line today. How far the shit will fall, I do not know. I may have destroyed a large part of my political base. However, I am gambling that such will be much less traumatic than being sued into oblivion when brother gets drunk and plows into the side of someone in an uninsured car owned by me.

*No apologies to Frank J for the use of this title. It just fit.

Posted by Tiger at August 28, 2003 09:42 PM