The Lottery Winner

by Pete Thorsen

  Also, I found out that if I was still not working in six months that I could get an extension on my unemployment for up to another six months. That was something new that had just been put into effect. Everyone applying for unemployment got a flyer explaining it. Apparently, the extension was passed in a bill by Congress because jobs were so hard to find right now I assume.

  Many waiting in the office there were complaining about trying to get by with just the reduced income from the unemployment. I would be fine, and I thought if those people cut their expenses back some they would be fine too. Of course many had to pay rent, and I knew for a fact that rent was pretty high right now.

  More and more people were renting because they could not afford to buy a house. Many that had owned houses had to let them go back to the bank because they were unable to keep up with the big house payments along with the house insurance and the property taxes. Those then empty houses were usually just changed into rentals because that was way better than trying to sell them again in this market.

  I think my boss was right about things getting ugly. I know when I got my property tax statement a month or so ago the taxes on my house were way higher and it made me angry. If I remember right, my boss had said taxes were expected to go up by about twenty percent but mine went up by about twice that.

  The county seems to be pretty greedy when it comes to taxes. They increased property taxes and the county sales tax too. They had also increased any fees they charged too I had also heard. No one seems to know how to cut back on expenses. Maybe if things do get worse, it will at least teach everyone including all the government entities how to cut back.

  While in town I bought groceries the same as I always do when I am here anyway. I also topped off the gas tank in my truck on the way home the same as always too. Once home and after putting away the groceries, I walked the perimeter of my property. I do this often though sometimes I just walk on the county road past my place. I only walk for the exercise and for something to do. I am not out patrolling my worthless property.

  With no work now for at least a few months, I fell into a daily routine. After breakfast, I usually take a long walk of maybe three or four miles. Then in the afternoon, I do some exercises, mainly upper body exercises. I need to keep in shape over winter, so I am ready for work in the spring.

  One winter I mostly just laid around all winter and when I started work in the spring, it was a killer trying to do the work for the first couple weeks. That first week was pretty awful, and I don't want to go through that again. So that's why I do the exercises.

  At the end of a month, I went back to town to buy more groceries. Things in town looked about the same. Coming in I noticed gas had gone up over another quarter a gallon.

  My first stop was the library. I read all the newspapers for the last month and paged through a few of the magazines where I would stop and read an article now and then. I found the letters to the editor the most informative I think. They seemed to be written by normal people for the most part. Overall most of the writers were not very happy.

  In the grocery store, I noticed the regular items that I always buy had almost all gone up some in price since my last visit. A gallon of milk had gone up over thirty cents. Now for most people, thirty cents does not mean all that much, but that was almost a fifteen percent increase in just a month.

  With everything else also going up it counts up pretty fast. When I saw the higher prices, it made me buy more than I needed to. I figured if the food was going up that fast it would be better to buy it now rather than buy it later at the higher prices.

  Again it also looked like there were more beggars out on street corners asking for money. I noticed some of the signs were just asking for food donations instead of money (though I'm sure they would not turn down any money offered them).

  I even stopped at the real dollar store where everything there is a dollar. The place was just as busy as the grocery store almost. People must have thought because everything was only a dollar it was cheaper than everywhere else. I had checked prices on a few things in the past and while a few items were cheaper here most were the same or higher than at Walmart. As always, you have to shop around for the best deals.

  I walked up and down several of the aisles. I did pick up a few things here and there. I had a basket, and by the time I went to the checkout that basket was full so I guess I did find a few items that I thought were bargains.

  Though the truck only needed a few gallons of gas, I filled it anyway as I left town. There were more beggars at the gas station. There were more and more beggars everywhere it seemed with every trip I took to town.

  A couple of weeks later when I got my bank statement, I saw a nine dollar and fifty cent fee had been deducted from my balance. There was no explanation for this fee, and there was a bunch of money still in the account. I decided to stop in and ask about it on my next trip to town.

  When the month was up, I took my regular trip into town. And as was my new custom my first stop was the library. From the library, I went to my bank. I had brought my statement and asked about the fee.

  It was explained that all checking accounts now would have that fee every month. I was not happy. I couldn't close the checking account because my unemployment checks were directly deposited into that account. Instead, I withdrew most of the money from the account.

  First I asked if I did so would I incur any additional fees. The teller said no because I had a steady direct deposit coming into the account every month, so there was no minimum balance requirement. I made the decision to withdraw as much as I could every month, so at least they would not have my money to use while they were charging me that almost ten dollar a month fee.

  It sounded like other people in the bank were complaining also. I couldn't quite hear clearly, and maybe they were complaining about something different than me, but they were complaining. On my way out I also noticed the table with the free coffee and cookies that were always in there was now gone too. Maybe the bank was falling on hard times just like everyone else.

  Chapter 6

  As I left the bank, I was wondering. I wondered if indeed the bank was falling on hard times. I guessed that they very likely were just like everyone. As long as I had my bank statement in my hand, I looked at what day my unemployment checks were deposited. I made a mental note to myself so from now on my trips to town would be two days after those checks were deposited. And I would withdraw that money.

  I drove over to the Walmart to buy groceries and a few other things I needed. There were plenty of empty parking spaces in the lot. Inside there were some other customers but not all that many. I took a cart and started shopping.

  I noticed right away that the shelves had many bare spots. As I progressed through the store, I could easily see that their inventory was way down. I was in no hurry, and I strolled up and down most aisles in the big store. I picked up items here and there all around the store until I came to the grocery section. Here I picked up the intensity and started shopping in earnest.

  I had a shopping list, but it had very few items on it, and most of those were non-grocery items which I had already picked up. I could see the grocery isles were suffering from limited inventory just like the other parts of the store. I started to really stock up because I could see the writing on the wall. If this big store had such limited stock, it likely meant that the situation would very likely get worse.

  In the grocery area, I did go down each aisle, and I looked carefully at every section. In the baking aisle, I needed a bag of sugar, and I bought three times what I usually did. Looking at the other items in that aisle I saw the canned milk like condensed milk and evaporated milk. I had looked at them before and wondered just how much like regular milk they were. They would keep a long time because they were canned.

  Next, to this canned milk, I saw some milk in regular cartons. This area was not refrigerated, and I wondered how this milk could be just kept on the shelf like that without it spoiling. I pi
cked one up and read everything on the label.

  It said it was just regular milk and did not need refrigeration until it was opened. I also looked at the sell by date, and it was over a year from now. Then I remembered seeing these cartons of milk in the real dollar store also. I had wondered about it then but never really looked at a carton.

  This milk here was just over two dollars for a quart carton, and obviously, the ones at the dollar store were only a dollar. I set this carton down and decided I would stop at the dollar store and buy some of their milk before I left town.

  There was a section in Walmart that had big cans, like gallon size cans of items in the store. I had seen them several times and just assumed the cans were for really big families or for commercial places to buy. Today I picked up one of the cans just for the heck of it. It was a can of corn. I almost dropped it.

  I expected the can to be heavy, but it was really light. I was confused, and I read what it said on the can. It was freeze-dried sweet corn. I then looked at some of the other items on the shelf. Almost all said freeze-dried or dehydrated. Looking at the can in my hands I looked at the use by date on the lid. I had to look a couple of times. It was about twenty years! On the label, it said packaged for long shelf life. Boy, I guess so!

  I set the can of corn down and then looked over the other cans. One can said it was dried whole eggs. I picked it up and read the whole label. This can of eggs was good for ten years on the shelf. I bought the one can of eggs to try it.

  I ended up buying quite a big cart full of items. Most of which were grocery items. And most of the grocery items were things that would last awhile on the shelf. After leaving Walmart, I did stop at the dollar store and bought a bunch of the milk in cartons that did not require being kept in the refrigerator. Again I checked the expiration dates on the cartons, and they were all over a year away.

  Gas was higher yet again when I looked as I drove past on the way home. This time I did not fill the tank on the truck. I wanted to fill it from my drum at home. And on my next trip in I would bring my gas can and fill that to refill the drum at home to rotate the fuel.

  Over the next three weeks, I tried one of the cartons of milk I had bought, and it did indeed taste just like any other regular milk. I also opened the big can of dried eggs and made scrambled eggs from them. They tasted and looked different than if I had used regular eggs. But they tasted OK, and I decided I would buy more just to keep on hand. I would still buy and use standard eggs and keep these dried ones in reserve for when I ran out of regular fresh eggs.

  When the date came, so I knew my next unemployment check was in the bank, I drove in and withdrew the money from the bank. There were signs on the bank doors and more signs inside that said: "Cash withdrawal limit $500 per week".

  Again there were other people in the bank, and none of them looked very happy. Neither was I. The money was my money. Not the bank's money. I complained, but it did no good. I left with only five hundred dollars in cash and a plan.

  I again went shopping. I bought the stuff on my regular list, and I bought another two cans of the dried eggs along with a few of the other big cans of dried food there. When I was done I did not pay cash and used my debit card instead. The sale went through fine, and I got more of my money out of the bank that way.

  I used the debit card again at the gas station and the dollar store. Gas had gone up again too. I had remembered to bring in my gas can which I filled.

  The town looked different. At first, I did not know what was different about it. Then I looked all around, and I saw no beggars. And I realized there had been no beggars anywhere in town today. I asked the guy at the gas station about it.

  "Where are all the beggars that I usually see?"

  "It’s against the law now to beg. Plenty want to, but the police arrest them if they catch them now."

  "If they are poor enough to have to beg I doubt they can pay a fine."

  "The police make them work it off. Same with all the speeding tickets and parking tickets and such. If you can't pay, then you have to work it off. Trash clean up. Mowing and cleaning up at the park or the cemetery. Shoveling snow on the rare times, we get any. The city garbage trucks have the same drivers, but now the guys dumping the cans are always someone paying off the city after being arrested. Almost any person doing city work now is just someone paying off a ticket."

  "The bank would only let me have five hundred dollars of my own money."

  "You're lucky to get that. Don't you listen to the news? Several banks have closed up. And people are finding out that the FDIC insurance on their accounts just doesn't have enough to pay everyone."

  "So they are just out their money?"

  "The FDIC is paying a sliding percentage of the money. Those with just a little money in the closed banks get all their money, and those with a lot of money in the banks get just a little cash and an IOU for the rest."

  "And people are OK with that?"

  "No, but what can they do about it? The big cities are having protests and many of those turn into riots, but it does nobody any good."

  "Someone I know told me some time back that things would get ugly. This must be what he was talking about."

  "I believe we haven't seen anything yet."

  Chapter 7

  It was winter, but we received very little snow around here. That was not at all unusual. Temperatures seemed to be around the normal range also. I was heating just about totally with my scrap wood that I had on hand. With the wood stove in operation, I used that for most of my cooking needs too, so I saved on my propane use.

  I used the small camp oven I had purchased, and it did sorta work. The heat from the wood stove was not enough to get the inside of the small oven up to baking temperatures. It still worked well for reheating leftovers and such, and I was not sorry that I had paid the three dollars for it.

  Winter was starting to draw to a close. I wondered if there was any chance at all that I would be called back to work. I really doubted it with how poor things were around here now. So far this winter I had noticed that several stores had closed in town. Surprisingly even three of the gas stations had closed also. But if people were not working they sure would not be driving much and needing any of that now expensive gas.

  There were likely more businesses that had closed in town that I did not notice or that were in sections of the town I did not drive through. I only drove about half way through town to get to the places where I normally stopped. I bet the number of closures was maybe double what I had seen when I was in town.

  With almost no snow I still walked almost every day. Sometimes I would carry a twenty-two rifle with me and so far this winter I had shot several rabbits for dinner. I had also shot two coyotes which I thought might allow for more rabbits in the area.

  Towards the end of December, I had received a postcard from the United States Postal Service. The card was to inform the population about the upcoming changes in mail service. Customers in rural areas (like me) would be getting only one mail delivery each week. In a blank space on the card, I got the word Tuesday that was hand written in so that must be the only day I would be receiving mail.

  The card continued to state that city route customers would be getting mail deliveries two or three times per week depending on which particular routes they were on. It also said that mail could always be dropped off at the post office locations and that mail would be sent out on the next truck leaving said facility.

  The card also said that most individual post offices would be shortening their hours of operation, and some might also be closed to the public on additional days each week. The new hours of operation would be posted on or near the front doors at all post office locations.

  Boy, that was sure a big change! One day a week mail service. Things must be pretty bad if even Uncle Sam was cutting back that much. It made me wonder what other changes were happening that I knew nothing about that would affect me. I was concerned enough, so I started listening to the local news
on a radio I had in the house.

  After several days of listening, I noticed the news on the radio was confusing. The announcers would spend some time telling listeners that the economic situation was improving but then would talk about more store closures or more government cutbacks on services. Those two things were exact opposites it seemed like to me.

  First saying things were getting better then listing all the things getting worse. It was confusing and concerning at the same time. It was like they had been handed two scripts to read by two different people and those scripts were at odds with each other.

  They never said much about world news or even national news. Sometimes the news would say things like there had been an earthquake in some country or there was a bad storm approaching the west coast or something like that, but those type news stories were about it for any news other than local news.

  On my trips to the library, I had noticed the signs on the doors that stated the new reduced hours the library was open. On my last trip in there were very few people in the library which had surprised me. The place was always busy with people using the computers and others waiting their turn on the computers.

  When the place was almost empty, I asked the only worker there about it. She said that they had to cut back and no longer had internet service there. She also said that they would soon be closing completely. So on my last trip to town, I was not surprised when I stopped, and the closed sign was on the door.

  What did surprise me was the postcard I got from the county. It was asking for volunteers for the new all-volunteer fire department. It seems the county had laid off all the firemen and now would be only using volunteers to fight fires in the county. I had heard of volunteer fire departments, but I thought they were a thing of the past and not done anymore. I guess I was wrong. The postcard made it clear that the work was totally volunteer and there would be no financial compensation to the firefighters. Limited local training would be provided for those that signed up.