Excuse Me, Can I take this?

We spend the biggest part of Sunday in the car, driving through the neighborhood. We had noticed people were pulling out the trashcans for Monday already. Like most people, we had picked up things on the street before, but we never intentionally went out to go garbage shopping. We were hoping to find a dining chair, or maybe we would get really lucky and someone would throw an old table away.

We stopped at a garage sale and spent $3 on an older tree-floor lamp, the kind you have in an office with three globes you can point in different directions. It was banged up and had seen better times. They wanted ten dollars, I offered three, and they accepted. Sunday in the afternoon, that’s the best time for garage sales. When people try to get rid of everything they have put out, so they don’t have to transport it back to the house. I swaggered back to the car with our new lamp.

The panic attack and the fact that I had blacked out for a few seconds in the bathroom early that day were not on our minds -at least we didn’t talk about it anymore. I felt uneasy but hid my concerns behind a big smile. We had a lamp. We even found an older chair, but it was priced firm at $10 and we didn’t want to spend that much.

We drove by a man who tried to pull a washer to the curb. I asked my husband to help him. Perhaps the washer was still working and we could take it off his hands? He got out and helped the man, sadly the washer was leaking and the repair was costly. I saw the guy looking at us and our truck and in my mind, I made up what he was thinking. “Look at the vehicle they are driving, but they ask for a free washer. You can learn from the rich how to save money.” The thought made me laugh out loud.

Our expensive truck would mislead many people, including all our neighbors, but not for long. We found another garage sale, people were packing up, a man placed a box outside. “FREE!” it read, and I asked him if I could take some. Again, there was the LOOK. “That’s why I put it out, help yourself,” and so I did. I apologized for taking it all, turned around, and left, blushing, like I had just stolen something in bright daylight. That’s how it felt. I had gotten four Christmas mugs for free and it felt wrong. They were green, robust-looking, and not very attractive, but I loved them instantly. Pride, new possessions. It was Easter and I came home with Christmas mugs.

Poverty and being poor is not easy. I was raised with pride, not as a beggar. I was raised to never take the last piece of anything -and to this day, I still follow this rule. I have been raised a giver, now I had to become a taker.

I believe women have a survival instinct that kicks in instantly. My husband wondered about it a lot. “Where have you learned to bargain like this?” I wondered about it myself. It came naturally but I didn’t know all the rules.

Does one apologize when you take stuff for free? Do you knock on people’s doors if you see something in the ditch that might be still useful or do you just take it? Again, we might come across as very naïve, but we really didn’t know and discussed it.

We bought the weekend newspaper for the flyers and the coupons, also we hoped to find job ads for me or for my husband, still not knowing if he would get hired on Monday.

Back at home, I played outside with the dogs. I had found an old deflated ball in the shed, which they loved because they could bite into and carry it around. Back inside, I fed the dogs, threw a fantasy rice casserole together, and put it in the oven. My husband sat on the air mattress, read the newspaper and I rolled the chair back to the desk and tried again to access the internet.

Later on, we ate, listened to music and made a list of things we needed urgently. A clothesline, clothespins, two padlocks for the sheds, detergent for everything I could wash at home in the sink. We had seen a laundromat close by but didn’t know how much it would cost us.

We ate dinner, fed the dogs, listened to music. We worried about the next day, the next weeks, the next months.

We had found a home, now we had to keep it.

I played around on the laptop, made an index of all the potential meals I could cook with all the sausages and meats we had in the freezer, started a grocery list, tried to think about everything we would need for two weeks.

I tried to go online many times. The same names and network connections popped up, all asking for a password. I was ready to give up refreshed the list for the last time and then, a new name popped up. JULIE and when I clicked on it my laptop connected to the internet and I could go online. I send Julie a thank you in my mind. I assumed she was a neighbor in our street, or perhaps the next street over. Whoever this lady was (I would meet her later) she made it possible for us to go online.

I filled out two applications, one for the Honey Ham Baked Company, the other one for Circle K, a gas station I had seen close by. I went to Craigslist, studied the job ads, wrote a few numbers down, read the Free-stuff section, and looked at the furniture people tried to sell. We couldn’t afford anything.

I stayed up half of the night like I was afraid if I would go offline, I would never get the chance to go online again.

The next morning came quickly. The plumber knocked at the door at 8 am right when my husband called the company who had promised to hire him. One hour later, he left to meet with them and left me with the plumber, who looked at the empty house and our air mattress and asked me when our moving truck would arrive.

I didn’t know what to say. Do you tell people the truth or do you lie? He was a stranger, so our business wasn’t his business to begin with. Still, what do you do?

I decided I needed more time to think about an answer and started talking to him about Memphis instead. It worked. An hour later, we had hot water.

Two hours later, we had a job.

My husband didn’t even try to fool me with a sad face. He came in grinning like a HONIGKUCHENPFERD (Honey-cake-horse =Austrian/German slang, a phrase for having a massive grin). He looked so happy, so relieved, and so proud.

It wasn’t my husband’s dream job, and it was far under his old earnings and below his capabilities, but it was good and honest work. It was a start. $16/hr, he would start working Wednesday in the morning at 8 am, considering he passed the required drug test and background checks on Tuesday. Also, he had to go for a physical, which is required in his line of work, in case he has to drive or move a big semi-truck.

The company paid bi-weekly, we could sign up for health benefits after three months and they provided uniforms. Five cargo pans, and ten polo shirts with the company’s name and my husband’s first name. They even offered laundry service. Bring the uniform in on Friday, get them back the following Tuesday, which was wonderful, but the icing on the cake was they supplied a cell phone and paid for it.

We hugged each other tight, laughed, and cried, we were beyond excited, dancing around like little kids. It felt like we exhaled for the first time in a very long time and tried to get rid of the pressure we had been under. Our gamble had paid off! We had a job, we had a home, and we still had our dogs.

My husband called Gary, our landlord, and let him know he could pick up next month’s rent on May 1st after 12 pm. He congratulated us -which I found very sweet.

What did we do next? We went shopping and spent $40 on a small camping fold-up table and four matching chairs. We purchased a new deck of cards and a clothesline -a value pack that came with clothespins.

I had made a list for Aldi’s what we would need to buy for two weeks.

Just the list with essentials was long: Flour, sugar, oil, vinegar, ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, cheap beef and chicken cubes to make gravies, margarine, cornstarch, eggs, milk, coffee.

Veggies and Fruits: Potatoes, onions, garlic, carrots, celery, oranges, apples, bananas, Lettuce

Extras: Yogurts 19c each, Tuna 49 cents, Easter candy marked down to 50 cents.

When I asked about the remaining Easter hams, a young girl told me they would mark them down to $5 two weeks after Easter.

I was on a mission, determined to never let us feel we couldn’t afford to eat right. I got creative, remembered old recipes, and went to the same website that had helped me when I made sausages. Many “poor people dishes” that I grew up with were available. Different from region to region, some spiced and pepped up, but still the same meals I enjoyed when I was a child.

Every time I served a meal, my husband told me it was the best he had ever eaten, and he was telling the truth. I don’t think I ever cooked with more fitness and more love than that time when money was tight.

Wednesday in the morning, he left for work, a sandwich bag in one hand, his heavy toolbox in the other. He looked so contented. When the door closed, I felt alone.

How often can you clean an empty clean house? Whoever Julie was, she was never online during the day, so no distraction from the internet either. I decided to walk to the stores on the other side. I need to find work quickly, my husband’s earnings would not be enough to live and buy all the things we needed.

That day our shepherd mix got acquainted with the old, fragile-looking lady who lived next door. I could hear them talk. Two friendships would start that day. She and our dogs talked every day on the fence-line, and later on, we would become friends as well. (I wrote about her once)

I filled out applications and on my way back, maybe fifteen minutes away from home, I felt like I couldn’t take another step. I needed to sit down. The ground around me felt uneven. I felt dizzy, which triggered anxiety. It’s like a cat chasing its tail. My worries and my own behavior made everything so much worse. I lived three blogs away, right? Or was it further? Was I lost? I panicked and I assume it showed.

Two young men were working on a truck in their driveway. I walked up to them, introduced myself, explained that we just moved here from out of state and that I wasn’t sure anymore how to get home. I gave them my address. One pointed left and right tried to explain to me which way to go.

I asked them if I could sit down for a moment. I must have come across like a crazy lady. Not even waiting for them to answer, I took a seat on the garden bench. “I am having anxiety attacks lately and right now I am not feeling well.”

I tried to apologize. “Why don’t we drive her home,” one said, and I wanted to hug him. A few minutes later, I crushed on our air mattress, the world still unsettled, not really spinning, but unbalanced.

Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong.

An hour later, everything was back to normal. I prepared dinner, washed clothes in the kitchen sink and waited for my husband to come home.

5 pm I heard the key. A smiling man who felt useful again entered our house. He shared everything with me; I shared nothing. I let him talk, listened, and smiled. He looked so happy. There would be time enough to talk about my little episode another day.

In the evening, we played cards. Mostly gin rummy and I thought him an old Austrian card game. We enjoyed each other’s company, felt very close, and very fortunate.

Never ever would we take anything for granted again!