Contract Attorney, Texas Style

Not one to complain when I actually have work, I’ve gone, in the last month, from the relative “good life”at a big firm to the never ending hours of a temp review with an agency.

I have to work over 50% more hours now just to make the dollars I was making a month ago. I have to keep making the same dollars because the wife and kids still exist, still live at the home I’m trying to pay for, and I have no plans to get rid of any one or subset of them.

The not yet paid for Suburban in the garage does not reside in the same “most favored relation” status, and had better not give me any excuses to start trying to investigate the resale market. It has, unfortunately as far as I’m concerned, never given us a moment of headache (other than at the gas pump). In fact, our Suburban probably spends its nights in the only “inside the garage” parking space trying to stop laughing about my two paid for run-down cars that live on the street.

My two cars are a pair of stories in themselves. First, I have to have two because if I didn’t have two, I’d have to be prepared to walk or call a cab when the one was in the shop. With two, you always have a spare. And, I need a spare because they’re not worth having comprehensive insurance on. No comprehensive, no rental car. Unless it’s the other person’s fault, but I have a hard time getting that to happen.

My two paid for cars have a combined mileage of well over fourteen laps around the globe, but I can’t bear to get rid of them. One, my wife bought at least 2 boyfriends before we met, and we’ve been married 14 years now. The other I bought after the first one was totaled in a wreck, and I found out they wouldn’t renew the title until I did all sorts of paperwork relating to salvage titles and copies of receipts and all sorts of that stuff. Then the CV joints went out and the A/C went out and the lights stopped working sometimes and it was really leaking a lot of oil.

The other one, I bought off of a friend’s mom, when I had some extra money. It promptly began to overheat every time I drove it. In one year, I’ve replaced the fan clutch 4 times, had 2 radiators, replace all the spare pulleys on the front end, bought a new water pump, several thermostats, and then, to cap it off, they detected coolant coming out of the tailpipe. Apparently that hurts the resale value…go figure.

Back to the good news. I’m busy, and I get to work from home on this project!