Navigating the Jungle

There are all kinds of advertising jobs you can get. You might work with a Chicago SEO company and get into Internet marketing. You might end up as a copywriter for a big time ad agency downtown. You could write commercials out in Hollywood for soap. Or you could do what I ended up doing. I stood out on the street dressed up in a stupid cat outfit, holding a sign that advertised “Bobcat’s Car Wash.” It was just as bad as you would think. People threw trash at me from their cars or tried to run over my foot. I stood out there in the hot sun all day long and only had a couple of five-minute water breaks. I did this for three weeks and got paid minimum wage. Yes, I was a desperately poor college student. And, yes, at the end of those three weeks, I was ready to stab everyone in sight. I didn’t even have a knife or anything sharp at hand. I thought I could people with the air. That’s how bad I had gotten. The worst was still to come because I needed a job the next summer and that experience qualified me to dress up as a giant lumberjack squirrel at a local amusement park.

I finally got in to talk with my attorney in Austin Chapter 13 is what she thought I should do. I wasn’t so sure, but I wasn’t an expert in any kind of filing. I did some research on various filing situations, and it turns out that there are actually a couple of different ways to go. None of them are good, however. I went home and began to wonder if there were some way I could avoid it all. Instead of getting the paper work in order, I decided to do something I hadn’t done in years: go fishing. I decided to take a couple of days and go home and just go fishing and think this whole thing through. I got in the car and started driving north. It was a full day before I got back home. I drove off the interstate and down the two lane, then up the road into town. I hadn’t been home in over 10 years, at least. When I pulled into town the first person to greet me was old Charlie Watson. He was old 10 years ago, old 20 years ago, and old 30 years ago. But he didn’t look any different.

If there was ever a time that I wish the country had free health care it was now. Over the weekend I had to schedule an appointment with a Green Bay bankruptcy attorney to see what I can do about my financial situation. As a cab driver I don’t have medical insurance, which I initially thought was great because it meant more money in my pocket every week, but I quickly changed my tune after a car accident left me unable to work and saddled with thousands and thousands of dollars of unpaid medical bills. I was hoping that the lawyer would tell me that I had a few options, that there was at least a chance that I would be able to get out of this without having to file for bankruptcy, but I am certainly prepared for the worst. I saw the total that I owed on the last bill from the hospital, and even if we could come to an agreement on some kind of payment terms that I could afford to pay every month I would without a doubt be paying toward this debt for my next three lifetimes without getting it paid off. If bankruptcy will discharge this kind of debt, then I’ll gladly suffer the consequences for the next decade or so but you can bet that the next job I accept will offer its employees medical benefits.