Girl on the Brink: Surviving Desperate Times with Desperate Measures

Day 76 — The Impulse to Cheat

How you cheat is your business, but you can’t deny the impulse. For me, I’d never steal from a store. Too risky, and the punishment is real, unlike what’s happened to the corporate pirates on Wall Street. A stupid college friend of mine got caught shoplifting at a G.C. Murphy five and dime (now out of business). [...]

Day 75 — A Fine Art: Reading the Fine Print

Searching for love online—and a job—intersect at reading the fine print. Let me be the first to admit that I don’t always read the fine print in an online dating profile, or employee manual, despite constant harping from lawyers and career counselors that this is important. Sometimes, you need to experience the horror of not reading [...]

Day 74 — Great Escapisms

Sometimes I fantasize about being D.B. “Dan” Cooper, the man who hijacked a Boeing 727 in 1971 and parachuted from the plane with $200,000 in ransom and just disappeared. It’s the only unsolved hijacking in the United States (still active with the FBI).  Vanished without a trace, poof. In my fantasy, the amount is considerably more [...]

Day 73 — No Touching

ANN’S NOTE: A reader pointed out that the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing is run by the U.S. Department of Treasury, not the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which is what I had originally written. This fact has been corrected in the copy below. If you ever want to feel like a kid [...]

Day 72 — It’s All Relative

You think you’ve got problems. Scientists predict that the earth’s median surface temperature will increase 9.4 degrees this century—making global warming far worse than expected! Polar ice caps will melt, beaches will go away, and coastal cities will flood. In the same way I sometimes hide from my problems, the fact that the article was published in [...]

Day 71 — Nothin’ But the Truth

Host Our Coast Update: The sponsors uncovered voting irregularities in the Host Our Coast contest for the wild card slot that awards the top vote getter an interview for this two-month gig exploring the Delmarva peninsula over the summer and blogging about it. Evidently, some of the contestants inflated their votes. That means your vote [...]

Day 69 — See Ann in Action

Oh, fingers crossed I get interviewed to explore the bays and beaches of Delmarva this summer as coast host for Host Our Coast, sponsored by the Delaware Low-Impact Tourism Experiences. The two-month gig sets me up in an Ocean City condo and earns me some cool cash for this cool job. Winner chosen on Monday [...]

Day 68 — When the Tax Man Calls

Often, you can do today what you could put off until tomorrow. Like last week I dreaded calling the DC tax office to see whether I could convince one of its customer service representatives to extend the deadline for paying my property taxes. They come due twice a year, in the spring and fall, and [...]

Day 67 — Getting Over Embarrassment

I’m about to use Medicaid again, this time for an ob-gyn appointment. I’m not pregnant so it comes down to a gynecological appointment. I haven’t had one in several years. I’ve skipped this appointment over the years because my former employer made me feel like I would lose my job if I skipped work too [...]

Day 66 — A Lesson in Frugality

Today, my ex brought home—for the first time in the 15 years I’ve known him—jug wine. Despite our shaky finances, he still has good taste, even in jug wine. It’s a French brand, called Roche Saint something or other. I guess if I hadn’t had that last glass I would remember. Nonetheless, this gives me an [...]