The Auto Auction

So let me start this at the beginning. So our present governor, Martin O’Malley, is a complete azz. He has raised the taxes on everything and cut back on everything all so that he can say he left Maryland with a billion dollar surplus when he runs for president. I can taste his presidential run. Do not vote for this man, America.

Anyway, MTA in Baltimore does not go your fukking way. Tuesday, I had the worse ride home. I had so many different people’s pelvises pressed up against me I swear I needed a cop, a CSI, a bath and counseling by the time I got off the bus.

So, Wednesday I had taken the day off to do some errands. Nothing like doing errands on a week day when most kids are in school and most adults are at work. I remembered that Baltimore’s impound lot has their auction every 2 weeks on a Wednesday. Lucky me, or so I thought, they were having one on my day off.

I figured if nothing else, I’d spend a few hundred dollars on a car that would get me from point A to point B and spare me the little piece of Hell that is Maryland MTA presently.

My last car was bought at the Bel Air auto auction and it ran great until I sold it. It needed more work than I wanted to put into it after a few years. I sold it to someone who worked on hoopties and everyone was happy. Gas prices were/are on a rollercoaster ride. I figured I’d wait it out. I didn’t know O’Malley would lose his damned mind and shut down mental homes and just release them into the streets of Baltimore with the rest of the moderate crazies. Can’t tell who is who anymore.

Bay…be. The stories I could sit here and type if carpal tunnel were not a factor.

Anyway, I woke up to a warm rain and thought maybe that would work in my favor. That perhaps the crowd wouldn’t be too thick. I’d never been there before. If nothing else, I appreciate the experience. I hope I never have to go back.

It was one of the most desolate places I’ve ever visited. I’ve been in cheerier cemetaries. While in the Caymans I took a tour to a little spot called Hell. I don’t have any pictures because it disturbed my soul. This place could have been Hell’s parking lot.

It was raining so everything was muddy. There was no grass. Not even WEEDS!!!! You know weeds grow any and every damn where. But nothing grew there. The mud was cracked like in a desert. I didn’t want to step in it for fear that I’d track something toxic back out of the gates and into the world.

Sound dramatic? Well, that’s how I saw it. Can’t help that.

There were rows and rows of cars in different states of death and decay. Some didn’t look too bad, like maybe their owners just didn’t have the money to pay their fines and get them back. While others looked like they had been there since they were new. There were actual burnt out cars, which stressed my soul because I wondered were there people in them when they caught fire. Several accident wrecks that made me wonder about the condition of the people who last rode in them. Then there were a couple vehicles with some suspicious dried blood colored splotches in them.

You’d have thought that would have been enough to send my azz right back out the gates and back to civilization, right? Well, there is nothing civilized about Baltimore’s transit system anymore so I stayed.

At the Bel Air Auto Auction, you are allowed to come and inspect the cars the day before auction and 2 hours prior to auction. Then you go and sit or stand in a large open air building and they drive each vehicle into the building and you bid there. In a covered building. Protected from the elements.

At the Baltimore Impound Lot…they put one of those bull horns atop a small city pickup truck. You know, one of those small trucks that is about the size of a VW Beetle. I can’t tell a Lexus from a Lincoln so I never know the name of any vehicle that I’m not responsible for.

In front of the pickup with the bull horn is another vehicle with a driver and a guy with a clipboard. The guy with the clipboard is key here. He calls out the numbers of the cars to be auctioned off. He yells off the numbers to the auctioneer. The auctioneer is the poor sucker who gets to walk the impound lot with us bargain hunters looking for a deal.

For nearly two fricking hours I walked out there in the rain, in the cracked mud, among abandoned vehicles. There were a couple trucks that made me sick in my heart. They were definitely workman’s trucks. Someone who was a skilled laborer. Their tools were still in the bed of the trucks. They sell as is at the Baltimore Impound lot. So how ever they got them, that’s how you get them.

We passed one car with a condom sitting up on the dashboard. I hope dude had a back up. People’s lives were still in these cars. Telling stories. *hunches shoulders* It was too creepy. I didn’t buy anything.

Not that I didn’t bid. Old cracked faced, tanning booth, biddy kept out bidding me! Heffa! After a while I got pissed and bid on one she was about to get dirt cheap. Like for $200. I had zero interest in this vehicle with four flattened tires. I was just pissed that she had outbid me on every vehicle I had been interested in. I refused to let her get this one dirt cheap. My dumb azz bid $450 on this vehicle that would surely need to be towed, repaired, excised, blessed, and a miracle performed on it to even get it to turn over. I am sure she just wanted it for parts. There were a few people there buying up junk cars.

Anyway, after my bid, I just knew she was going to nod $500. Heffa turned and walked away. I almost yelled: Bytch get your old azz back here and buy this damn car! *chuckling* That learned my azz. For a minute there I almost had it. My heart sank at having to fork over $450 on a vehicle I knew didn’t work. Then her partner called to her and she looked back at it and nodded to him. Then he bought it. *relieved sigh*

But through it all, I had to stifle the urge to shudder at the scene before me. At one point it was raining so hard and there were so many people that I didn’t put up my umbrella because it just would have been hitting people in the head. A thought ran through my mind real fast: I hate buying junk.

There it was. I hate spending my hard, hard, hard, HARD earned money on junk. I stayed the whole auction, even through the scooter auction but I didn’t buy a thing.

And I didn’t feel bad getting my azz back on the bus to go home either.

I’ve decided I’m going to try my best to be a very good person in this life. I am hoping to make it to Heaven. I am hoping that God will ask me is there anything special I want if/when I get to Heaven. And I’ll reply, Yes, Lord. Let me chose O’Malley’s purgatory. I don’t think it is too bad. He gets to ride a bus for a millennium or two. Just getting on sardine packed tight buses and getting off to wait in the heat, rain, cold, snow, hail, etc for a couple thousand years. Having total strangers pressing their private parts against his body. See how he likes having a guy’s pissy smelling crouch beside his face while he’s sitting down on an overcrowded bus on a summer’s day with no AC or *excited yell* OR on a cold winter’s day with the heat so high it feels like it is 100 degrees Fahrenheit and you’re melting inside your winter coat. See how he likes having crazy people talk to him about whether or not they will die poor and he hasn’t even made eye contact with these loons.

Oh yes…yes yes yes yes yes! I’m betting they’ll be others in Heaven that will have even better ideas and we’ll have a millennium or two to make sure he feels our pain. I’ll be sure to show him just as much mercy and consideration as he’s shown the working class citizens of Maryland.

*sighs* I bet I have some good dreams tonight. ‘Night…

I want to say something on BA buuuuuuuuut...

Last night on BA a rather spirited conversation started about the value of peen vs coochay. Long story short peen is free and coochay is *pause* not free. *chuckle*

A bit of a war broke out and I wanted to join in this afternoon but I noticed something. The fellas have all gone silent and into hiding. *chuckle* This cannot be good. I figure too many of their manly nerves got struck. But one of them had the nerve to say coochay is worthless. *blink blink* On a site owned and operated by a woman, for women, and where the overwhelming majority of the posters are women.

Um...no bueno.

Anyhoodles, what did surprise me is that there were only a few of the regular women posters reading the guy. The rest of the ladies were very quiet on the matter and that was another reason for me to still my fingers and sit back and take stock.

This guy is a new poster whose story just doesn't add up to me. Another reason I don't advocate internet dating. The Y chromosone is the lie chromosone. Period. Men are good liars in person. On the internet they are freaking brilliant at it. *smh*

I hope not too many of the chicks fell for his lies. As soon as he popped up spouting off about all the people he knows with money and how he's just stacking bills etc my BS meter sprang to life. *chuckling* He sounds like someone who is on the outside looking in at the wealth and has gleaned just enough knowledge to fool someone who is naive, be she from the projects or a small midwestern town. He just doesn't sound like he spends oodles and oodles of time around rich folk as someone they would socialize with. Heck, he doesn't sound like someone I would socialize with and I'm basic. *shrug*

Last week he was bragging about his $10k ghetto blessing. His words not mine. Though, $10k in this economy isn't a lot of money, I wouldn't call it a ghetto blessing. I'm not even sure what that would be. No blessing God bestows upon me is small or considered ghetto to me. A ghetto is something most people with sense aspire to get up and out of. A blessing is something people hope, beg, plead, and pray for. I mean, I've never prayed to live in the ghetto, not even a French ghetto and I so would love to live/visit France but not to live/stay in a ghetto. No thanks. So, I'm not sure why he was downing his alledged cash winfall that he wasn't expecting.

I know $10k would make a lot of women (and men) drop their panties. *shrug* To each his/her own. That's the price of a sensible used car, so it is nothing to sneeze at but you still have to pay insurance, gas, maintenance, emmissions test, and registration. Yeah. I wasn't impressed but good for him if it was true.

It did make me sigh though. Why ninjas always got to tell everyone when they got money? I don't understand it. I mean, if he was doing what I suspected from jump, trying to get some chicks to give him some play, then yeah it would work for some women and not for others. *shrugs and sighs*

Anyway, I couldn't say this on BA because, I think the fellas are already in their feelings. *chuckle* Sometimes it is best to just STHU and leave well enough alone. Everything that needed to be said had been said.

Of note though was the difference in how this conversation about women/coochay being worthless went down as opposed to the chick who showed up on OHN and said black men ain't sh__.  OHN cussed her out and told her to die or something along those lines. My BA ladies engaged him in facts and examples. *smiles* They are some witty and intelligent women on that site. And the regular long time male posters STHU. *LMAO* So they are pretty smart, too.

I think the question should be: What’s wrong with black men?

So, I’ve spent some time ruminating on the subject of why everyone wants to debate what is wrong with black women. There was an article published not too long ago that said our latest problem is that we think too highly of ourselves now. *blink blink* How is that possible? First, we had low self-esteem issues. Then nobody wanted to date/marry us. Then we are just riddled with all these bad statistics on health and wellness. Our wealth factors are not discussed. *smirk*
Soooooooooooooo…how is it possible that we think too highly of ourselves?

*snort chuckle smh*

The critics need to come together and come to a consensus and stick to it cuz they’re losing their core audiences with the way they keep flip flopping on the issue.

I was on Baller Alert and there was a really good conversation going on between the few men smart enough to carry on the conversation and brave enough to give their honest opinions.

Basically it sounds like the average black man wants a woman to:

Cook and clean like Martha Stewart:

Earn like Claire Huxtable:

Sex like whoever is hot in the porn industry now. I wouldn’t know because I like Hentai. Judge me all you want. I really don’t care.

All while looking like this:

Meanwhile, they don’t even meet us halfway. I swear if I had a nickel for every man who stepped to me looking like a just cleaned up version of Ned the Wino from Good Times while I’m dressed and carrying it like Mrs. Heathcliff Huxtable I would probably have a good $50,000 in the bank.

*looks at pick* Heck, they don’t even look that good half the time. Then they have the nerve to get mad after I respectfully decline them. Like I am in the wrong.

And I don’t know who started that missing your blessing phrase but it needs to be retired becuz these fools actually think they are a blessing to somebody other than their lonely mothers who spoiled them so rotten that no woman can put up with their ignorant, simple minded, immature azzes and they end up living with her until she dies. Guess what mom? Once you die then your spoiled azz baby boy will be all alone because no one wants him.

*shrug*

I’m trying to figure out why I am supposed to be happy to go sit on the steps of your momma’s house or worse where you are renting a room in my outfit that from head to toe cost around $300 (told you I’m a basic chick). Like, seriously? Dude, do better.

No, that is not all black men or all black men in Baltimore. Just the ones that get indignant at the rejection. Red Lobster is considered the height of fine dining for them. And they only make it over there if it is income tax time (if child support isn’t hunting for their refund) or they found a chick who doesn’t mind treating them. I mind. A man is supposed to be the protector and provider. Get on your job.

If I said the words Niche Bai Kai, Kobe’s, or Fogo de Chao they wouldn’t have a clue what I was talking about. Heck, Ruth Chris would probably sail over their heads, too. If I said I was in the mood for Greek or Indian food they’d tell me to stop by the colonel’s and pick up a four piece meal for them on the way back. They’d accuse me of acting white. I have already been told on multiple occasions that I sound and act like a white woman.

*side eye* No, momma’s boy, I am not acting like a white woman. I am a woman who has come a long way from the high rise projects where I was born. I am a woman who has tasted a few of the finer things in life and like and appreciate them. I am a woman who wants to continue to do better. I want to see how far I can get from that little project baby girl I was before I die. I am not competing against a single person on this planet. Not even myself. I just want to see how much I can grow as a person.

Now how are you supposed to keep me or how am I supposed to keep me in the style that I am accustomed to if you can’t meet me? Because if you can’t meet me then I’m gonna have to help you meet me, right? Which takes away from my already meager earnings. And if you can’t afford to keep me then how in the world are you going to keep this:

So I think I understand now what the average black man is complaining about. They are going to have to do some soul searching and conventions and bus trips to work it out amongst themselves. Becuz I really don’t see a way around this other than they are going to have to work harder and be better in order to get better.

I mean, come on now. I’m a basic woman and once I am dressed for work, forget socializing, just for work my clothing costs are beyond the average black man.

Hair: Natural so you get a break there.

Panties: $6

Bra: $40 – big boobs need good support.

Slip: $30

Hose: $6

Dress: $70

Tennis shoes for walking to and from work: $60

Shoes that I wear at work: $80

Purse: $50 that’s just my every day purse.

Earrings: $20 for the gold studs in second hole; $300 for earrings in first hole

Necklace: $300 – probably underestimating as the price of gold has gone up since I bought the necklace and pendant that I wear regularly to work.

Dang! I underestimated big time. The total for the above ensemble is: $962. Add coat, scarf and gloves in the winter and the price goes up another $400. In all honesty, that’s how I carry it when I am going to work. We are not even going to get into when I socialize.

So again, why is the above the curve black woman supposed to want to be with a man who can’t even reach basic me?

I mean let’s be honest here. Who wants to struggle financially? It causes worry lines and stress. Stress ages you prematurely, causes health problems, disrupts sleep, and forget about sex.

If you are one of the truly pretty/beautiful people aesthetically speaking and you can find someone to work like a fool for you then why should you be poor, broke, busted and disgusted?

To tell the truth the only men I seem to hear complaining about it are black men who came from poverty and suddenly became rich. You know the athletes, rappers, musicians, actors and such. And of course the average every day black man. Gosh! Poor black men really are behind the curve of every other man on the planet, huh? I mean even Caucasian men who come up disadvantaged financially still know the status quo once they become rich and you don’t hear not nan complaint from them. Meanwhile, as soon as a poor black man gets a win fall then black women are golddiggers. However, ‘exotic’ women are worth paying the price. *rolling my eyes and smh*

If you want beautiful, intelligent, witty, sexy women, regardless of skin color, then you have to pay the price. To quote the often quoted phrase on BA: A pretty girl/woman should never have a wet butt and an empty purse. *smh* They just don’t go together.

I know youth and beauty fade but you know what? They fade a lot slower when they are well taken care of. All that black don’t crack stuff is just that, stuff! When we don’t take care of ourselves it shows. It shows in the dark circles under our eyes. It shows in the bitterness of our spirit. It shows in our slow dragging steps as we plod through life. It shows in the dullness of our eyes.

No, thank you. You can have poverty and neglect. It is bad for your mind, body, heart, and soul.

I love my black men but I swear they are some of the most arrogant men on the face of the Earth and don’t have shyt to show for all that arrogance. They could stand to learn some humility. They’d be happier. We’d be happier.

There’s nothing wrong with black women except we can’t stop loving our black men, even the ones who ain’t about nothing, and they don’t even know how to love themselves.

I mean take black men on the downlow. Please miss me with that nonsense about not being allowed to be gay or bi-sexual. You can’t stop a black man from doing anything he sets his mind to do. Period. I believe men on the downlow hate themselves. If they hate themselves then they can’t possibly protect themselves from HIV/AIDS. And if they hate themselves then they can’t possibly love the women who love them. Every time one of them has unprotected sex with another man and then goes right home to that woman who loves them (wife and mother of his children or girlfriend) and has unprotected sex with her, he shows just how much he loathes himself and her.

Yeah, the more I think on it the more I believe the problem with black women is black men. The problem with black men? I think they are just sick and tired in their spirit. It is hard to be a black man or woman in this world. Don’t pity us. Don’t you dare! Pity never helped anyone. It hurts more than it ever helps.

We have more strength, ingenuity, mental acuity, love, protection, passion, and just LIFE in us than any other man or woman on the face of this planet. From the black man’s loins sprang forth the seeds that planted life in our wombs that birthed nations. Every nation on this planet came from us. Every nation on this planet has taken from us and spat on us. The black man shouldered the brunt of that. We tried to stand firm together but so much has worked against us. Not the least of which is our own, male and female, arrogance. We were kings, queens, princes and princesses, pharaohs and chiefs, warriors and warrioresses. We have been everything that all the nations are now and more. I know it without being told. It is in my blood.

Still, we got tired. You can only fight the good fight for so long before you get tired of getting hit. It has been a long road. I believe with all my heart that we will find our way back onto the right path again. We have to. If we don’t then the rest of the world is doomed.

Yes. I believe that, too. I believe ONE of the multitude of problems with this world is that we haven’t taken our place in it yet because we are not what we once were.

I can truly say that I only still stand because of my belief in God. But I think it is going to take a lot more than church to get us back on the right path. I don’t know how to get back on the right path. I just know it has got to start with humility. Maybe our arrogance is what got us on the wrong path to begin with.

Something to think about.

*tips coffee mug at the monitor*

Just some random thoughts...

I swung by my old hang out, OHN. The guy who runs the site was giving appreciation to the posters and lurkers. What bothered me was that he said his numbers were down. He didn’t know how it had gotten like that. I hope his numbers rebound soon. I like that spot.


I started wondering myself and immediately thought of a few things. One, the recession because people have had to cut back on luxuries like internet access at home. Also, those who access the site from work may have lost their jobs or their jobs may be blocking OHN now.

Don’t know if I mentioned that a few months ago I tried to sign on to OHN and one of the site’s sponsors popped up asking did I want to download something to my computer. Of course I clicked NO and the damn thing started downloading anyway. Luckily, I was at work on my lunch hour and the job’s firewalls caught it. Then my computer flashed a message that read CALL THE HELP DESK AT ____. *nervous chuckle*

We have 3 different computer help desks at my job: one for software, one for hardware, and one for network connectivity issues. There’s a different number for each. Normally you put in a help ticket and it will get triaged to the correct IT team. So when my computer for the first time ever flashed the message to call this number, I started sweating. Luckily, the firewall caught it after it replicated itself the first two times! By the time someone from IT got there it had replicated itself 4 more times. Soooooo, no more signing into OHN. I do check from time to time when I see there’s a new comic strip up.

I don’t know where he got that sponsor from. I definitely don’t even bother to check from home let alone sign in. I got a firewall but it is nowhere near as sophisticated as the one at work. I tried checking from an internet café a couple times and the café listed the site as blocked! Yikes!

The second problem he may be having is the couples. I know I’ve mentioned that a couple chicks have come after me after they thought I wanted their avatar boyfriends/husbands/fiancées/fantasies. *rolls eyes shrugging* Whatevs.

This time last year I took an internet hiatus from everybody, OHN, BA, and a couple other of my e-hangouts. Work got KA – RAY –ZEE!!! We had 2 people rushed to emergency surgery, another person had elective surgery that had been planned long before the emergency surgeries and then we had work being thrown at us from all over the place. We got some contracts in a country that we had to re-establish our presence in. So it was a mess from Thanksgiving until spring. So by the time I signed onto OHN again some things had changed. Like people who had just been regular single folk were now coupled up. That’s fine but I did a lot of stumbling while I figured out who was with whom.

After the culture shock I realized something, if it was that serious then the couples should have slipped into lurkerdome and let some new lurkers come out and become regular posters. The people posting now are not the same folks who where posting when I first started stopping by 2-3 years ago. Just like they fell off and new ones stepped in the same will likely happen if the couples with the sensitive (read insecure) womenfolk fall back. I mean one chick came at me after I was joking around with her e-hubby and come to find out Chante has a man at home in real life! *smh snorting*

I was like, and y’all treat me like I’m the crazy one. Yeah. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. So I just swing by, look at the strips, like, share on fb, and keep it moving. Lurking is fine for some sites but OHN is one I would want to comment on and it is no fun if I can’t comment. I have enough sites where I just lurk.

Then his third problem is probably that he doesn’t post enough comic strips. At least not for me anyway. The strips were what drew me in to begin with. The character he created, Boo, is an absolute fool and I loves his ectoplasmic heart. *chuckling* He use to give us a strip every week. Now it is really intermittent.

Anyways, what made me think of this is I ran across a couple of my attempts at starting my own website. *chuckle* I don’t think it is my forte. *lol* It takes a lot of time and effort to find your niche, get it up and running, keep it running while you find your audience and then grow your audience to where it is first self-sustaining and then profitable.

I compare OHN and Baller Alert and I don’t know how Boss did/does it. Boss is the screen name of the woman who runs Baller Alert (BA). I KNOW we are just as classy, sassy, intelligent, smart, funny and at times ig-nant as the folks on OHN and yet BA has great name brand sponsors. OHN *embarrassed shrug* A gay thug dating website? I’m so serious.

I hope he figures it out. I like his site and the people on it. We’ve had some great meet and greets. Now I can’t say that about BA.

Anyways…work tomorrow. That’s another post for another day. *smacks lips together sleepily* Oh! I got a new love. I call him Waldo. He is my new mattress and I heart his queen sized square self very much. And he requests I turn off my computer and get comfy now. So nighty nite.