Paths

My daughter's first day of summer was today...I love how the first day of her summer, and my summer, is when school is out...the summer solstice is not for another month!
The weather seemed to know it, also, as it was 90 degrees here, which is unseasonably high, and sooo humid, as befitting living in the Ohio River valley.
A few hundred people around town ran out of gas this week, and it actually wasn't their fault!  It seems a local distribution site for a major gas company was selling gas with high levels of sulfur, which messed with people's gas gauges and made them think they had half a tank of gas, right while they sputtered to a stop on the freeway.  The gas company has said they will be spending the next few months spending lots of money on fixing people's cars.
Of course, the day the news came out, I had half a tank of gas, and I couldn't remember if I had gotten gas last at the "bad" company or not.  It was stressful driving for a while...
I was in the breakroom on the 2nd floor today, and ran into a woman who had been in my class this semester.  (She got an A- too, hmmm...).  It's amazing we went the whole semester without knowing we both worked for the same company, but we do take several floors in a high rise building so maybe it's more surprising that I ran into her!
Anyway, she asked me if I had done the tuition reimbursement for this semester and last semester.  Surprised, I answered "No", as I thought the company only paid for business classes.  She just stared at me.  "Well", she said, "I'm an English major, and they've been paying for MY classes." 
What?!
To make a long story short, I quizzed several people upstairs, and the answer is, "Yes, they would have paid for this"...which made me want to beat my head on the wall for all the money I shelled out for U of L this year, that I really didn't have to...
...but my frustration turned to excitement when I was told that I can still get my money back!  Yes!  Yes!  All I have to do is fill out some forms, along with copies of my grades, and a letter explaining how STUPID I am for not realizing that I should have done this a year ago, and I get my money back!
This means that not only am I going to be able to get my second degree without going broke, but also, if my employer is going to pay for it, I will get a third, and a fourth, and a fifth.  They'll most likely be sorry sooner than later that they've hired an eternal student...LOL.
This also highlights what it's like to be me...I'm forever doing stuff, or, should I say, not doing stuff, and paying for it later, unless I somehow get bailed out of it by a miracle of coincidence (if I had not run into this woman, for instance, it never would have crossed my mind that I'd be eligible for this.)
For example, the last time I got a ticket, I put it out of my mind...kept ignoring it...tried not to think about it...until the time came that it was too late to pay it and I had to go to traffic court.  So not only was I going to have to pay my ticket, I was going to have to pay court costs on top of it.  I meekly went downtown, stood before the judge ready to write my check out for way more than it originally would have been...and the judge dismissed the case!  I didn't have to pay anything, no ticket, no court costs!
I usually just passively let life toss me around, and only find out things when it comes to me, and only approach things when I have to.  It'll be a struggle to make myself get this paperwork together (no, really), but the $1000 plus that I'll get back is a strong motivator...it'll come in handy toward fixing my car since my car wreck a few months ago (I have a $1000 deductible, don't ask), I've been waiting for money to drop in my lap so I can get my car fixed.  See how this works!