As the money leaked out, I hoped and hoped and hoped that something would come my way, but nothing, absolutely nothing in the way of a new job raised its joyous head and yelled, "Hey you! Here I am! Pick me!"

I had a plan, though. It was such a good plan, nothing could go wrong.

Unfortunately, Robert Burns said it best:

The best laid schemes o' mice and men

Go often askew,

Yesterday, one of the companies I thought was interested in hiring me, but never returned my calls, sent me an email saying they were hiring solo drivers. That's me! I want to be a solo driver. They sent me an email!

So, I call and the recruiter says that I've been off the road too long and need to go thru their refresher training program.

Yes! I can do this.

So, I put in place my plan of action. I tell the recruiter to give me 24 hours to get a few things in order and I'll call back.

Then I call the credit union and say I want to refinance my car (which I own free and clear and is the only asset I have to my name) and the credit counselor takes my applicatioon. Unfortunately, my loan request has to be sent to the loan officers for approval. (???!)

This morning a loan officer calls and says, "Your loan looks good and you have good credit, but you do not have any current income." (looks innocent over telephone) "You need to find someone, a family member (most are dead) or friend (yeah, right) who would be willing to sign the loan as a joint applicant." (In earlier times, a joint applicant was called a co-signer, but that term had a lot of negative connotations, so it was changed to something more innocuous.)

You can't imagine how many friends you have you are unwilling to take any risks in life. Well, maybe you can imagine. No matter how you say it, nobody wants to have to take on the payments if anything should happen to me.

So, the one opportunity I need to get the boat turned around and heading to port turns into a bust.