Another update on things (things would be easier if I were a lying jerk; assholes got my nephew taken from my sister)

I lie.  I think most people do.  Sometimes it's easier than telling the truth.  Sometimes the truth is embarrassing, sometimes there's shame involved.

That said, lying for personal gain isn't something that I really have in my ethos.  Lying to avoid awkwardness, sure.  Lying to trick people into doing something that benefits me, not so much.

I bring this up because I still have no idea what I'm going to do with respect to money moving forward.  If I were willing to lie to exploit people then I bet I could get a lot more time to form a plan before everything came crashing down.

You see, when my boiler needed to be replaced and I thought I was doomed, people came through for me.  More than I needed.  I actually had enough of an excess to pay my past-due tuition.  Of course that tuition went to classes that I have since, with one exception, dropped out of so there's a lack of joy there.  But that's not the thing.  One day I thought I was doomed, the post saying I wasn't doomed was 24 hours later, almost exactly as I recall.

If I had pretended I was still facing an existential financial crisis, maybe more people would have donated.

I know for a fact that I could have gotten some $5,000 more if I had it in me to be a lying bastard.  Someone said that they could pay that to help me replace the boiler.  I responded in honesty that I'd already gotten the money I needed, and they should keep theirs.

I don't regret that.  It was the right thing to do.  But part of me wishes I did have it in me to exploit people's charity.  If I had pretended I still needed the money for the furnace, and dishonestly taken the offered money ... well do the math.  The problem I face is 400 less dollars a month (200 less for food, 200 less for everything else.)  $5,000 divided by $400 per month means that if I'd taken the $5000 I'd have twelve and a half months to figure out what to do before I actually needed to somehow change the equation.

If I'd been dishonest, I'd have a year of security in which to try to fix things.

The idea is alluring even if I know I wouldn't do it, even if I had the choice to make over again with the knowledge I have now.  I'm not that sort of person.

It's annoying that it often seems like you're damned for your good aspects.

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My sister went on a road trip with her son in which they, if I understood correctly, visited every one of the contiguous states.  I ... don't see the point.  It doesn't seem like they would have had enough time in most states to really enjoy them, so from my point of view it would have been better to plot the most efficient course between the things they were planning on stopping and enjoying and take that regardless of whether or not they hit every state.

When she got back she discovered that the person she had trusted to house sit in her absence should, in no way, have been allowed to do such a thing.

Honestly, I'm not surprised.  The people she tends to hang out with have serious problems.  Many of them are traveling homeless individuals.  There's nothing wrong with that.  Most of them seem to be fine people.  The problem seems to be that when people live on the margins of society disconnected from social norms, people with negative personalities seem to flourish.

This wouldn't be a problem but my sister doesn't seem to discriminate.  Some discrimination is bad (see: bigotry) some discrimination is good (see: only let reliable people have total control over your house.)

So she came home and the place was ... covered up.  The destroyed and/or stolen things had been replaced by facsimiles.  The ruined walls had been given a fresh coat of paint that didn't actually hide the horrible things that had been done to them.  Some of the less visible things had been stolen without even an attempt to hide the theft.

Put simply: it was clean, but very, very wrong.

My sister got pissed off.  My sister kicked the thieves and vandals out of the house.

The people in the house responded by trashing the place, doing property damage, and --as a final bit of laser guided evil-- drunkenly calling child protective services.

Child protective services showed up, saw that the now-trashed house wasn't fit for human habitation, and thus my sister and her son are separated.  Or were.  There may have already been an update in the case, one was due this morning, which I haven't heard about yet.