Full Circle

[Chantellabella]

Valentine's Day I was minding my own business, cleaning my balcony to get ready to paint it

Valentine's Day - guy shows up, says he's a handyman. Has his wife and 7 year old son with him. Says he needs the work. Eludes he's homeless. Lots of blessings. Gives me a horribly expensive price, but adds he needs it in cash now because they are desperate. Sends me to the store to buy supplies while he and his wife and kid are at my house (house is open because the kid looked innocent)

He cleans a few boards and cuts two boards - extent of day one work

Next day - he shows up with his wife and kid and about 6 guys who are going to paint the eaves. I find out he's giving them only 100 dollars and they get the job done in 30 minutes. They tell me he overpriced me like really really bad, but again, I think it's for the kid and still give him the money cash. Then he gets mad at them and curses them out (out of my earshot) for telling me that. It starts to rain later. He cut one more board that whole day because he was too busy following me around keeping me from talking to the other people and too busy going around my house trying to find other things wrong with it to price gouge me more.

Next day - I call to tell him not to bring his kid on Tuesday because he had his kid hold the wood while he saw with an electric saw right next to his hand. I was massively stressed out. I also said he needed the job done on Tuesday no excuses. His wife answered and said his brother had tried to commit suicide and he had to go down to Houston. I knew this was a lie and said I would pay for the work that he did, but I wanted my money back. I would get somebody else. She promised at least to give me a fraction of it on Weds.

Wednesday - no money. No sign of him. I had his tools though.

Thursday - I found out he was arrested for stealing from Walmart that Sunday. But they let him out on Monday. Seems he has a long record. Gee, wifey poo let's lie. I called CPS to report that child is endangered

Friday - I put his tools on my porch and left a message to come get them. I didn't want him to break into my house trying to get the tools.

Monday of this week - get a letter that CPS found no cause for alarm.



So let me tell you how I felt all week.

Pity and compassion
Confusion
Denial
Anger
Depression
Fear
Paranoia
Anxious
Self hatred
World hatred
Giving grace
Getting angry
Understanding
Not understanding
Anxious
Self Pity
Vengeful
Understanding again
Angry
Sad
Bitter
Powerless
Annoyed
Semi-accepting
Sigh.
Lesson learned.
Move on, sigh.

Dammit.

I put this in Success stories because it only took me a week to overcome yet another major hurdle in my life.

Sooooooooooooo.................................... how did everybody else cope with [BEEP] this past week?

[merc]

Oh! I see you and I run into the same types of people. I once took a friend who's car was broken to Wal-mart to return clothing which she did, however, I later learned that due to repeated shoplifting offenses she has been banned from Wal-mart. The clothing she returned was probably stolen. She is always broke and used the money to buy the essential mani-pedi and tips. All the while I waited, bored for one whole afternoon...

If she calls, now I just say no sorry. She is very friendly, but ...I don't need that kind of friend.

[Chantellabella]

Oh! I see you and I run into the same types of people. I once took a friend who's car was broken to Wal-mart to return clothing which she did, however, I later learned that due to repeated shoplifting offenses she has been banned from Wal-mart. The clothing she returned was probably stolen. She is always broke and used the money to buy the essential mani-pedi and tips. All the while I waited, bored for one whole afternoon...

If she calls, now I just say no sorry. She is very friendly, but ...I don't need that kind of friend.

yeah, I got really mad at myself at first for getting sucked into that scam. He also scammed an 80 year old lady down the street. We both gave in because of the boy.

Now my new response to everything is "NO!" People don't even finish a sentence and I yell it.

But you know. The next hungry kid with a mother who just lost her job.....................sigh. You'd think that living on the streets when I was a teen would make me smarter.

[Chloe]

Or it means your just more compassionate especially when children are involved which is understandable as anyone's main concern would be for kids.
You could even go one level deeper and say you sympathise with children because you were (if I remember correctly) a teen and still only a vulnerable young adult when you were exposed to all that stuff and so you relate to the children's situation and try to help them despite knowing that your being cheated (when you said it was overpriced)