As You Should Surely Know By Now
One of Conrad's guilty pleasures (apart from "Police Interceptors") are the various categories of stories on Youtube that reprint stories from Reddit, and my horrible sense of humour and schadenfreude means these are usually Pro-Revenge, Nuclear Revenge or Malicious Compliance.
Today I'm venturing into a different variety, which you might call "Ultimate Bottomhole" or "Justice Triumphs Eventually", thanks to the sheer roller-coaster ride presented. Art!
First, we begin with an end. OP's husband drove his car off the road and into a tree, which at first looked like an accident and then later on as very probably suicide.
Why so? O I thought you'd never ask.
Because Hubbo was the breadwinner, as OP was a Stay At Home Mother with 3 children. He ran a computer repair business and handled all the family finances, because you can trust your husband, can't you?
Or not. Art!
OP was utterly gobsmacked at the financial horror-show she found when dealing with the family money.
The 'computer repair business' hadn't done any work for over a year. Bottomhole Ex had taken money out of the business to cover what he'd taken from the now-empty savings account, and had then taken out two $20,000 bank loans to cover the business, which in fact he'd blown on gambling websites and what OP coyly described as 'illegal activities' which one imagines to be drugs and prostitutes.
It gets worse. BEx had multiple credit cards in his name, which were all maxed-out. Not only that, he'd committed identity theft and fraud and opened - and maxed-out - credit cards in the name of their three children and OP. Art!
BEx's destination
It gets worse. There were warning letters from the bank that their mortgage hadn't been paid in 4 months and they were at risk of foreclosure.
It gets worse. Yes, it can get worse! BEx had stopped paying his life insurance months before his 'accident', so no compensatory pay-out for the family. OP ended up discovering that the total debt he'd accumulated came to almost $500,000.
You can call her naive or stupid for not having a handle on the family money situation, but you don't really expect your life-partner and father to three children to throw them under a fleet of buses and wash their hands of the whole thing in as selfish a manner as it's possible to get. Art!
And all of this shortly before Christmas. I did say it could get worse, didn't I?
So, there's OP and her three daughters, penniless, jobless and soon to be homeless, as they had no choice but to sell the house.
SUDDENLY! Redditors arrive and spread magic pixie dust around, also known as relevant advice (and words of support). OP gets Social Security for her youngest child, food stamps and Medicaid, as per advice.
She applies to 'PMHA' which is not explained but which seems to be a charity or federal housing agency, and she gets a permanent residence.
Declaring bankruptcy enables 95% of the debt to be discharged.
Directed at the sub-reddit 'santaslittlehelpers' she is able to request and receive Christmas prezzies for the kids.
A Redditor who had read her story offered her an office job on a trial basis, which was going swimmingly on her Last Update. Art!
So, despite being dumped in the mire by a single person, BEx, she was helped and aided by a raft of splendid examples of Hom. Sap. who came to the rescue. One of them, who had worked in the Estates department of a bank for several years, even explained the legal process to her, after some plonker weighed in with a load of nonsense. Briefly put, the bank would file a claim against the estate, and OP would need an attorney to collate a list of assets and liabilities; and she was directed to 'Ohio Legal Aid' who could either represent her directly or find an attorney for her. She should then declare a right to spousal allowance, which would allow her to receive funds ahead of any debtors. A Schedule Of Debts would then be published, after which any debts not linked to her name would be forgiven. Art!
Don't you just love a happy ending?
Here's An Unhappy Ending
As you should surely recall, Your Humble Scribe maliciously posted yesteryon about the share price performance - or lack of it - of Donald Judas Trump's stock DJT, which had been on the slide, rather. Since I was posting early in the morning, the South Canadian stock exchanges hadn't woken up by that point. Well, they have now. Art!
Ooops. Look like his ear scratch boost has worn off. This is the lowest it has ever sunk to. Tee hee!
Hot Stuff Indeed
We rather gloatingly informed you of an enormous fire that had broken out at the Proletarsk oil storage depot in Modern-day Mordor. Details are a little sketchy but it seems that possibly two Ukrainian drones hit it on Sunday. This revelation has been explained away by the Ruffians as 'All the drones were intercepted - er - but - some flaming debris fell on an oil tank'. Art!
This is a satellite photograph from 'Sentinel', showing the plume of filthy black smoke stretching into the Ruffian hinterland, like some vile Mount Doom analogue - hey, that's rather good, I shall have to re-use that one.
ANYWAY the fire has been burning since Sunday and not only have the orcs not been able to put it out, it has spread. I overstated how many tanks were originally ablaze; it was 11, which increased to 22, which has now increased to 32, and there are only 76 in total. Art!
BEFORE DURING
I bagged these photos from "Suchomimus", who also provided an update on the value of fuel here - $200 million in total, about 100 times what I'd calculated, and as you can see about $100 million is going up in smoke. Normally for a large-scale fire like this the orcs bring in special fire-fighting trains, of which there is a conspicuous absence here, possibly due to no rail links close enough to the fires. There are supposedly 600 firemen not being able to tackle this blaze, with over 40 injured, probably due to being danger close to exploding tanks.
The sheer explosive force inherent in these tanks thanks to their content is a sterling corrective to autocratic despots who decide to throw very large stones from their very fragile glass house. Art!
The Mordor Tourist Board invites you to visit their very latest attraction!
A Late Birthday Haul
Today I received a pair of 'pool shoes' that are more flexible than my Crocs (I know that's not their name I just can't be bothered to look it up), yet just as eye-catching in design, ensuring that in the dark winter days ahead I won't be at risk of being hit by traffic. Art!
Today I've only been pottering about the house; I shall get more of a chance to field-test them on Wednesday and the weekly shop.
Ho Ho Ho!
It warms my fusion-powered pumping unit to see a piping hot slice of justice being delivered to an obnoxious con-artist and crook who has fallen from grace in South Canadian politics. Not the usual suspects who grace these electronic pages, though we have covered his repellent self in earlier times. Art!
He doesn't look quite so chirpy now, does he? He pled guilty in order to avoid a trial and even more severe charges, so might get off with seven or so years in prison. The sentence won't be announced until February 2025. Enjoy your last 6 months of freedom, George, you Santos
Finally -
I don't really have anything more to say, it's just that I need another 11 words to get us up to the 1,300 word count total. All achieved without inserting a big chunk of fan fiction text. Go me!
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