I'm lucky to park within 100 yards of my home these days, and the winter promises to make things even worse.

I'd like to inquire about your rental fees. Worcester rent is really taxing its toll on me.

I don't know this person, because I don't go down south Main very often. I'm usually in around the Elm Park area, and from there somewhere on Park Ave down to May St. In that area, especially where Chandler St and Park Ave meet, there's a lot of folks there that have been down on their luck for some time. I came here almost exactly 2 years ago, and it's stunning to me that the same people that were flying signs when I arrived here are still doing so today.

There was one who is missing, my kids began to call him "One Dollah," because he would walk out into traffic and ask "Do you have one dollah, do you have a cigarette," and he wasn't shy about it. If my window was up, he'd knock on it. It kind of upset me a little when I was in the Walgreens drive-thru and he came up from behind me in the line of cars waiting to get to served and knocked on my window. I almost jumped into the passenger seat.

I saw him sitting outside of the DD near Mason St, on Chandler St. It was like 8am and he was sitting on the curb, smoking a cig. Since I'd seen him for so long, I wanted to ask him why he was out doing this for so long. He replied "Well, I smoke crack, so..." and shrugged. He stated it so matter-of-fact that I just replied "Oh, ok well that makes sense," and went about my day.

As I said, he's not been seen in quite a while, I've asked some of the other people about him but they seem to not know who I'm talking about. If anyone happens to know what happened to him, I'd love to know. My hope is that he got some help, that he's with his family, and that he's doing better.

Are you talking about Mikey, he was rather heavyset, had lots of piercings and worked at a gas station? I just found out like a month ago that he passed. Overdosed, in fact. Really sad, he was trying to get his life together, got the job at the gas station and was doing well there. In fact, I saw him interacting with his manager a few times, and it really seemed like the manager was depending on him quite a bit, which was a good thing job-wise I thought at the time.

When I asked about him... this was about maybe 6-7 weeks ago, I was told he had passed away. So very effing sad. :(

I really appreciate the response. I couldn't find anything even close to local, but it looks like a lot of these places are used to shipping. It's funny I didn't think of this. I did some software engineering work for a mechanic who wanted a custom inventory supply application, and I had to connect the car-part.com web site to his new software. Thank you for reminding me of it - again, really appreciated!

Hey thank you for this - super appreciated!

SPIN!

I was just saved by this wonderful organization.

This is kind of long, and I'm sorry, but I'm emotional since this just happened.

A little backstory: I've been out of work for months due to COVID taking a toll on me. My 12 year old son was also horribly affected after taking the vaccine.* It killed his pancreas, and his thyroid. Because of the pancreatic damage, it no longer produces insulin. 9 hours after taking the vaccine, my son was diagnosed with pediatric sudden-onset type-1 diabetes and Hashimoto's disease because of the Thyroid damage. He's now a lifelong diabetic, and has to take insulin and thyroid hormone for life.

I also take care of my 23 year old son who has cerebral palsy. He's quite active though, and mentally, he's as sharp as a tack, his physical ailments limit the kind of work he can do, but he did just get his first job at a grocery store, and I couldn't be more proud of him.

I just started working again on the 10th, and received my first paycheck this past Wednesday, the 26th. As one might imagine it didn't go far, and just enough was left over to get to the next paycheck 2 weeks from now.

To top it off, yesterday I was driving down Park Ave near WPI. There's construction happening there, and there's a bunch of exposed manholes. If you happen to get in the wrong lane, you'll have to dodge and weave to get through a minefield of manholes. Because I had a car right next to me in the next lane over, I couldn't dodge and one of the manholes tore the tire right off of one of my wheels. It destroyed the rim as well, and I'm driving on a spare.

The point of the last few paragraphs was to some of the difficulties we faced over the past year. It was exceedingly difficult at times, but we made it by sticking together and toughing it out!

SO... On Thursday, my 1 year-old cat began to show signs of illness. We were concerned and called a vet immediately, but that was first call of many just trying to find a vet that had time to see my ailing cat. In the end, I took him to VEG in Shrewsbury - where the most amazing animal hospital I've ever seen exists!

They gave me an estimate just to find out what was wrong with him, and I applied for and was denied care credit. My out of work status has seen my credit suffer alongside everything else. As sad as it was, they couldn't care for my cat, and we were sent home. I called the shelter we received our cat from, and told them the situation. Evidently, she knew a person who started an organization called Stray Pets In Need - SPIN! The lady who runs SPIN called me and offered to pay for my cat's entire hospital bill.

This bill totaled $5,480. There's NO WAY I could've paid for that. Not now, not even in a few months. We were going to lose our cat - very loved member of our family, and there was nothing I could do about it. The people at SPIN are angels, and I've dedicated a $1,000 gift to them myself as soon as I'm able to do so. It will be sooner, rather than later because I'd like them to be able to continue to do for others, as they did for me.

I'd urge anyone to check out Stray Pets In Need, and let them know how special and appreciated they really are by giving them the help they need, so that they can continue to help others in times of crisis!

Thanks for reading, reddit!

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*Note: Despite my son's injury, I am not an antivaxxer. Not at all.

He deleted his account. Was it that bad?

This would be a ridiculously difficult case to prove, unfortunately.