So I went to my meeting this morning and one thing is certain: My lawyer is HOT.

Yes, she's a woman godammit.

She seems to think that I have a good case, but to strengthen it I should go see a psychiatrist. She figures that any prooven mental disorder could only help at this point.

That's going to be fun.

What really sucks is this could still take up to a year to resolve. But if I do win I'll be getting a buttload of money. Granted I'll have to give a quarter of that buttload to my attorney now, but if she can make it happen then she'll have earned it.

Let's just hope that that's not the only involvement I have with her ass...

Of course, if my going to the psychiatrist leads to me being institutionalized it may greatly speed up the process, but it'll severely hamper my beach plans.

According to Jan (the Lawyer in question) the thing that hurts my case the most is the fact that I'm a college graduate. See, SUPPOSEDLY, a college degree makes it easier to find a good job. When she said this I asked her the same question I ask anyone when they ask me why I don't just get a job: "Are you hiring?" The answer is invariably no. I'm in too bad a shape physically to do any fast food or labor jobs, or anything else that requires a lot of standing or walking. I could probably do a desk job, but they'd have to be really permissive about medical absences. That's not really a problem though because NOBODY IS HIRING.

God this town fucking sucks.

Of course it doesn't help that I have an English degree in a town full if illiterate morons. A preternatural ability with language means little in a place like this. For instance, did you know that there is a word for throwing someone or something out of a window? It's called Defenestration. Do you think knowing that is helpful at all here? Granted it does get you some strange looks if you mention it in your interview and you happen to be sitting in a fourth-floor office, but it doesn't get you a call back.

I guess all of this is forward progress though because now I have somebody on my side that knows what the fuck they're doing and she's significantly motivated to help. 25% of anything I get going back to last November up to $56,000. If I make enough off of this where that becomes an issue I'm fucking MOVING to the beach.

It seems suspicious to me though that when I told her about the woman at the Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR) telling me to get a lawyer, and even mentioning the one I was relating the story to by name, she laughed a little but she didn't seem surprised.

I've been saying for a while that the system intentionally drags things out so people will just give up or die, thus saving the government money. Well it also seems that they're throwing the lawyers an awful lot of money too by recomending that those seeking aid seek litigation. Seems like kickbacks to me. I think this is because so many lawyers go into politics and the ones at the top are helping out the ones at the bottom. You know, get some good decent lawyers in there and discourage the damn dirty hippies from trying to get in there and change things.

This is sounding familliar to me. I think I've ranted on this before.

Nonetheless, it seems to be true.

Plus, if you're giving lawyers lots of money to keep the system running you give them incentive to not fuck with it.

That's pretty much it for now. Tonight's my last night at my brother's place and tomorrow I'm going to try to finish that painting job. It sucks that it would just be a couple days work if I was in good shape, but of well...

Oh, one last thing. I spent yeterday and last night over here at my brother's place and wouldn't you know it, the damn mouse gets caught while I'm not home. It had already licked off all the peanut butter days ago so either it was jonesing for more peanut butter, got clumsy and tripped over the damn empty traps, or he committed suicide when he realized where he was living.

So he's dead.

OK, just a quick update.

Still no dead mouse. There is evidence that he's been eating the bait from the second trap and has still not sprung either of them. I am dangerously close to getting a cat.

I had planned to resume my painting job tomorrow, having taken the last two off due to extreme heat. It's supposed to cool down tomorrow, but it's almost 4 AM and it's still 86 degrees in my living room so I'm not gonna hold my breath.

And finally, I think I've officially given up on going to the beach. I mean, I COULD do it, but the repercussions would be pretty severe. So what I'm gonna do is finish the painting job, pay off the bills, and on Saturday I have a meeting with a local lawyer who specializes in Social Security cases. I figure I'll take the Social Security money and fix my car and go on a nice road trip when my finances are more secure. Maybe go down to Brian's, swing by Rich Fucking Sanders's place, and then wander on to the beach. It may be winter by then, but fuck it, I'm going to the goddamn beach.

But more about all that shit later. I need to try to get some sleep in case I have to go work tomorrow.

So we’ve got a mouse in the house.

Jay saw it a while back but as often happens, I just kinda forgot about it. Well a few nights ago I saw it run under Jay’s bedroom door. When I mentioned this to Jay he wasn’t surprised. Apparently he’s been seeing quite a bit of the mouse but didn’t think I needed to be reminded about the situation.

Just when you think someone knows you.

So I have decided to take action. I bought a four-pack of the good old tried and true snap-traps, baited one with peanut butter (extra chunky) and waited.

My first choice would have been a live trap. Not because they’re more humane, but because I want to take the little bastard alive and feed him to something. Maybe a cat, maybe a snake, maybe those carnivorous fish I’ve been wanting to get for my aquarium, it would depend on what was going on at the time. In any event I was limited by my nonexistent budget and the traps were like a dollar. It’s been a while since I priced piranha, but I’m sure they cost more than that.

I put the trap between the bathroom and Jay’s room since that’s where we keep seeing the varmint. That was a few days ago. This morning I see that the bait is gone and the trap remains unsprung.

Fuck.

What’s really messed up is I could understand if the rodent just picked off a piece of cheese, but the whole idea behind using peanut butter as bait (besides the fact that I was eating it at the time I opened the traps) was that the mouse would keep licking the trigger till he got a mouthful of coiled-steel death. Well so much for that fucking idea. There’s not a bit of peanut butter left on there and I still don’t have a dead goddamn rodent.

I have considered getting a cat, but I’m already a 30-year-old bachelor living with two other 30-year-old bachelors. I think a cat might send the wrong message.

Then again, it's not like I was getting tons of chicks anyway...

So I left the unsprung trap laying right where it was and put another trap, also baited with peanut butter since we know he likes it, and placed it right next to it. So now for the mouse to get at the new bait it practically has to sit on the trigger of the other trap. I only regret that I can’t set up a streaming webcam feed of this sure to be entertaining spectacle of vermin death.

That or feed of the little bastard thwarting yet another obstacle and me going to even more Wille-E.-Coyote-esque levels of traplaying. The quickness with which this can devolve into a Three Stooges episode is truly frightening.

And to all of you out there that are against the killing of animals for any reason, bite me. If you can’t see the difference between saving an endangered species and ridding one’s home of dirty parasites (at least the 4-legged ones) then we simply cannot talk to one another. You would try to convert me to veganism and I would, in return, have to punch you in the throat.

I’ll try to round up a digital camera and post a picture of the dead mouse as soon as possible.

And in totally unrelated news, I may soon be the webmaster of TerriblyWrong.com for an indefinite period of time. I’ll not go into the details of why yet, just getting the word out there so my geek pals can prepare themselves for the onslaught of my computer illiteracy.