On the night before the payment (by which I mean the half-payment) was due, I was informed it would not be made on time. Thus in turn, naturally, mine won’t be either.

I don’t know what that will cost me, since I’ve never once been late before, but I reckon I’ll be finding out soon enough.

Probably about as much as a bag of cat litter bought on credit costs after all is said and done.

I do know that it left me feeling very done with blindly trusting anyone for anything, and I’m expecting that feeling to linger with great dependability for quite some time.

Moments later it started to rain and shortly after the rain began to freeze.

The next day I couldn’t trust the weather service either. I did go out, during the hour-long window they said it would be dry. It was not.

So instead of walking I went to the clean-water machine. It ripped me off for a dollar. It was not my very last dollar. Just the second to last.

That is not hyperbole.

The sun began to set.

In response to the gathering darkness, I did not make almond milk. I can’t afford almonds. But I did fry up a pound of buffalo hamburger and thought nice thoughts about the ones who had left it here. That was a good transaction. Pure keto too.

Skinnier and skinnier.

Then I fed all her cats, and Kali, and Riley the preening in-between boy, and I put myself to bed once more. Although I still did not have a replacement for the down quilt that one of them destroyed, I slept a very long time and I think that had something to do with the depths of my mood; tragic and wrong.

A week from Wednesday, which is ten days from now, things are alleged to start getting better.

Ten days is the farthest in advance that the weather people predict.

They say there will be a high of 62, sunny skies all day, and a low of no less than 36.

So, they say.