Christmas is coming...extra cash?- Page 3

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 10/11/05 at 5:38pm

For part-time temporary holiday employment, I always enjoyed working at a bookstore. Though predictably, during the holidays, you get some REALLY stupid questions("I'm looking for a book, I don't know the author or anything, but it's this big and green" - true story), but it was the least stressful job I ever had and I got a great discount. All my friends and family like to read, so it was easy Christmas shopping that year.

[KelRel]

Posted: 10/11/05 at 5:40pm

If you are going to work at a retail job let me recommend Bath and Body Works. You get a 30% discount and the company as a whole treats its employees very well. I worked there for ages and loved it.

[etoile]

Posted: 10/11/05 at 5:51pm

You can always apply to work a department store's backroom stocking and unloading. Zero to little contact with the public.

Shouldn't the post office be gearing up for seasonal help also?

Or just forget giving a fancy gift and buy a cheap pair of rose-tinted glasses. I hear they're all the rage and perhaps through them everything will look just lovely.

[RobbO]

Posted: 10/11/05 at 5:53pm

or you can buy used drinking glasses (half-empty or half-full) from a garage sale?

[Rathnait62]

Posted: 10/11/05 at 5:54pm

I don't think the post office hires people off the street. You have to have taken all their tests, etc.

[orion59]

Posted: 10/11/05 at 6:17pm

Sueleen, Just find yourself a man with a job who is willing to pay all the bills. Then, what money you do have, you can keep. No need for a second job. I've never done it but I hear that many do and do it quite succesfully.

Updated On: 10/11/05 at 06:17 PM

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 10/11/05 at 6:20pm

The gays aren't allowed to sell the blood any more. Total cootie-phobia.

Many lifetimes ago, I quit a job at which I had suffered beneath a piddly middle manager who was a rageaholic sick in his own disease. My then-honey ended up footing my share of the bills after the unemployment checks ran out. When the holidays rolled around, I had almost no money to speak of. I sold some books to a used bookstore, and many musical recordings (I shall not reveal the format so that this tender tale may seem timeless) and with that money I bought a blank book with a red velvet cover and two fountain pens, one red and one black ink.

On the top of each page I inscribed in red ink with my most beautiful possible penmanship a series of inspirational verses, quotes and epigrams, leaving plenty of room for my then-honey to write down his own thoughts and dreams, giving him the black ink fountain pen for just that.

That holiday, he opened his only present, and as he leafed through the book, his eyes welled up with tears and spilled all over the handmade wrapping paper and even the red velvet of the book cover. He expressed that no gift had ever touched him so deeply or moved him so much.

Overall, it didn't cost very much money, but it was a bit of an investment of time, doing my best to make each page just so, and with no errors or ink splotches. But the time it took to create such a personal present was well worth it.

By the next holiday, that honey of mine had left me. As is usually the case, the stress of having to help a spousal equivalent through such a long fallow period, proved to be our undoing. There are limits, even to such soulful generosity, and, I found, that once somebody crosses it, there is no going back.

I often wonder what the black ink says in the red velvet book that helped create our last whimiscal holiday together.

[KelRel]

Posted: 10/11/05 at 6:24pm

Namo dear I am tearing up. That is a very sweet story.

[orion59]

Posted: 10/11/05 at 6:25pm

Aw, Namo, a truly inspiring story and only partially plagerized from O'Henry.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 10/11/05 at 6:37pm

I'm not saying it's a truly original idea, but at the time I think I was stealing it from John Boy Walton.

[orion59]

Posted: 10/11/05 at 7:02pm

Well credit poor John Boy. Don't be one of those people who posts inspirational thoughts and fails to credit the source, thus leading those who are less knowledgable into believing that you wrote it yourself.

Do it again and I'll have to block you.

[Nina]

Posted: 10/11/05 at 7:09pm

Sueleen, you surprise me. Have I taught you nothing?
You should have plenty of expensive jewelry hidden away which can be sold or pawned. I've told you before, always make sure they give you diamonds.

The only thing better is real estate. Have him buy you two matching buildings marked "hers" and "hers"

[Unknown User]

Posted: 10/11/05 at 7:28pm

Sueleen, I might suggest giving advise for a fee. Open a account with Pay Pal that credits you with the payments. Charge everyone a flat fee, say $10, payble upfront. Once payment is confirmed you are available to answer their questions and give advice. Each question and reponse is a $10.00 fee.

I believe many of us here on BWW.com would gladly pay you $10.00 to allow us to ask you a personal question and receive the benefit of your experienced wisdom be it on life, love, overall general good health, the state of the American muscial, etc.

And you can do it all from the convenience of your home, with no wardrobe or commutation expenses to eat away at your earnings.

Give that some thought.

José


Updated On: 10/11/05 at 07:28 PM

[Unknown User]

Posted: 10/11/05 at 7:39pm

Having said that, I'll offer a personal "too poor for Christmas" story of my own. It's short.

There was a time, a number of years ago, when my partner and I found ourselves without funds as Christmas rolled around. Neither of us could afford to buy each other a gift, much less anyone else. We used what funds we had to make a special Christmas dinner (both for the 24th and Christmas Day), and I bought us a copy of Dickens' A CHRISTMAS CAROL. We spent Christmas Day, and a few that followed, reading this story aloud. It was a magical Christmas. We still have the book, and each other.

Over the years we came to the conclusion that we give each so much all year long, small and bigger things, that a "special" gift at Christmas is superfluous. We generally opt for small token gifts that have personal meaning to us, and don't break the bank.

We also try to make "Christmas" for others who are less fortunate. One year, for example, we bought gifts for children whose parent(s) were on welfare, and delivered them ourselves.

José

Sappy, I know.
Updated On: 10/11/05 at 07:39 PM

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 10/11/05 at 7:45pm

I love that story. And then years later when you have extra cash, buy a ton of blow and party in the Xmas snow!

[London Boy]

Posted: 10/11/05 at 7:47pm

Short of cash? What's that?

[Unknown User]

Posted: 10/11/05 at 8:09pm

So, in subsequent years when funds would be limited, and I heard, "so what's for Christmas?" my response was always "A Christmas Carol."

That damn book has worked its magic for many, many Christmases.

[RobbO]

Posted: 10/11/05 at 8:11pm

my story is exactly the same, except our book was "the joy of gay sex"

sappy indeed.

[Unknown User]

Posted: 10/11/05 at 8:16pm

Sometimes life needs some sap go to with the s**t it throws one's way.

[Elphaba]

Posted: 10/11/05 at 9:57pm

great story Jose......we do the same. We consider our Europe trip each year our present to each other, so at Xmas we bake, do all the other Xmas stuff, but limit ourselves to small gifts.
Each year I pick a "cause" I donate to. This year it's the middle school down the road from me who recently got failing reading grades. So, I am donating an amount of money that must only be used for books for the library.
As I am having an excellent year workwise, I might also extend it to a high school in Hawaii that never has a library budget.

Xmas is also special to us as some of our ornaments belonged to friends who have passed away. While some are old and tarnished they go on the front of the tree, so we can remember them.

[Unknown User]

Posted: 10/12/05 at 11:57pm

Sueleen, any decisions yet from the myriad of suggestions offered?

[SueleenGay]

Posted: 10/13/05 at 12:16am

Considering the poor advice I have given to people in the past (My sister still won't forgive me...like it's my fault her tow-headed kid with the personality of a floor chased after that ice cream truck screaming "Give me a Big Stick, Mister, I want a Big Stick!!!" I thought it would be cute, how was I to know the good humor man was a pedophile?) I don't really consider that an option.

As for hawking the jewelry, Nina, that was done ages ago. I still think I didn't get nearly enough for that diamond studded Cocl< ring.
So, no, Jose. I haven't come up with anything yet. But I have time. And I am staying positive. Something will come along if I believe hard enough. And if not, well, he will still love me.

I hope.

[orion59]

Posted: 10/13/05 at 6:27pm

Then might i suggest you pick up a copy of Deepak Chopra's Seven Spiritual Laws of Success. It will outline exactly how to make money and prosperity come to you without your having to lift a finger. It teaches you how to get everything you ever wanted simply by letting teh universe know your desires and having it find and deliver them to you. The universe is sort like a personal shopper at Barney's.

Wynnona Judd is a Chopra follower and look at what it's done for her.....Good God almighty, throw some more gravey and Jack Daniels on them pork chops.