Eric says:

Oh, I got my act results back this weekend.

Small Difficult Drew says:

let me gues

Small Difficult Drew says:

you made a 29

Eric says:

32

Small Difficult Drew says:

smart is down here

Small Difficult Drew says:

32 is somewhere way up there

Small Difficult Drew says:

wow

Small Difficult Drew says:

32 is like the: "i'm building lasers to destroy mars" kind of smart

Eric says:

how did you guess!

Eric says:

I could have done better

Eric says:

I only got a 25 on the math.

Eric says:

Hah.

Small Difficult Drew says:

what about science reasoning?

Eric says:

sci 34, eng 32, reading 36

Small Difficult Drew says:

Dude you're gonna OWN some kind of scholarship if thats what you wanna do

Eric says:

if what is what I wanna do?

Small Difficult Drew says:

i wouldn't exactly reccomend the whole college experience

Small Difficult Drew says:

it was a real downder

Small Difficult Drew says:

downer

Eric says:

I'm going to college

Eric says:

But, I don't know which one, or what I should be doing now. I guess I didn't
have any plans for after I broke the ACT's back.

Corey bought a nice boat, and propelled himself and myself vicariously through him, into something known as "redneck supertardom". Things are looking up this summer. Quantity and quality time will be spent this summer on the lake. I'm finding that weekday afternoons on the lake are much better than weekends. Nothing like driving from work to the boatramp.

So I’d been overdrawn on my bank account by a few dollars and cents. It happens less now, because I haven’t written a check in a long, long time, as I’ve been using a debit card that politely declines your request for ATM cash or payment for food when there is no money in your checking account to be had. Checks aren’t as smart as the check, cards. You see. And the check card has made even me appear smarter, at least to the bank people.

But back to the overdrawn thing. Two or three things get drafted out of my checking account auto mattingly. Stuff like my truck payment and certain insurance payments and even sometimes a paypal payment that will search my person for additional funds when the paypal account needs a little bit more money to pay for certain ebay items like yachts and small Grecian islands. Seventeen or eighteen dollars and some amount of cents I was overdrawn at the close of business on Friday, transactions of goods and services in lower Arkansas can be considered business; and if not business, something slightly above renting and tying three pigs in your front yard to fertilize the grass behind the concrete peeing kid sculpture and razorback yard ornament.

See I don’t have many bills, just a little bit of college debt and a little bit of it doesn’t pay to discover debt. Nothing major. This morning though I called the bank and inquired of the current balance of my account, except it sounded something more like, “How much money do I have, in there?”

All she asked for was my name. Ladies at small-town Arkansas Credit Unions don’t need any other kind of verification. Half of the time they recognize my voice.

“Six hundred and thirty-two dollars Mr. Stephens.” Then she told me something that I wasn’t expecting. “Did you know that you only need to make one more payment on your truck?”

At this point Drew leans back in chair, swallows his mouthful of chicken flavored Ramen instantly instead of the usual half second chew, “What?”

The payoff on your Ranger is one hundred ninety dollars and some cents Mr. Stephens. Did you know that?”

“No ma’am. No Ma’am I did not.”

Arrangements were thus forth or something made, to immediately put myself in official possession of my truck for the remaining $190.00 that I owed the bank.

I guess I’ve been living in some kind of vacuum over the past almost year, but regardless of my perception of time the payments were still being made. Last time I remember thinking about the payoff on my truck was early August 02.



Things are getting better. The pain is still here. Its like a big bloated thunderstorm warning and it won’t go away, even when you change the channel. I am sure that it is like this in some form or fashion for everybody in my family.

In spite of the obvious, there are other things that are getting better. Me and DeAnja are getting married in September. We are looking for a place to stay in Little Rock, close to my job, and my job is nice, as I’m paid to do things I deprived myself of sleep to do, back when I needed the sleep for Biology finals and such. I think that I would/could do a lot better at my job If I didn’t have to be on the road for two hours everyday driving to and from. Thus the apartment shopping.

Mom and dad and I guess all of us are selling the house. I will miss it. It’s something that must be done. This place is full of happy memories that only make us sad.