Motel

  I was just about done moving my stuff to the storage unit in Columbia.  I rented a van from Enterprise to get the rest of the stuff, including my bed frame, some speakers, and other things.  I wanted to be able to put some clothes and essentials in my car for the last trip.  The day I got the van, there was snow on the ground.  

 After getting back with the van, it was time to say goodbye to Greenville.  It was sad for me, because I loved it so much, but it was time to go.  My car wasn't running too well.  The gears were slipping, but I had to just suck it up and leave.  I didn't have a place to live in Columbia, but I heard about a motel with free wi-fi on Forest Drive that had weekly rates and was cheap.  The Marlboro Inn

 I got a room and unpacked my car.  It was cheap.  A bed, TV and microwave was the order of the day.  I found out early on that the free wi-fi was turned on for an hour in the afternoon, when the manager's daughter needed it to do her homework.  I was close enough to the public library to use their wi-fi for other times.  I sat in my car behind Forest Lake Shopping Center to do that.  I stayed at the Marlboro Inn for two weeks, until I heard about the In-Town Suites on Broad River Road.

 It cost about the same as the Marlboro, but they had round the clock wi-fi.  They had a bed, TV, and kitchenette, so I was moving up in the world.  My room faced the back end of the Boozer Shopping Center, so I woke up to the sound of garbage trucks collecting the trash from their dumpsters.  The walls were paper thin.  One night, I heard a man beat up a woman.  I think she died, because the police came and questioned me on what I had heard.  I knew it was time to leave there after a week.

 I then moved across town to the Masters Inn on Knox Abbott Drive in Cayce.  I ended up staying there for about six months.  The weekly rate was slightly more, but I was within walking distance of the grocery store and Wendy's.  What more could you ask for?  Their rooms were nicer than the previous two, and they had washing machines on the premises.  The only drawback was that it was next door to the Brookland Cayce High School field, which is where their band practiced early in the morning.  Instead of garbage trucks, I woke up to the sound of drums and trumpets. It was there that I saw that Farrah Fawcett had died, and then Michael Jackson.  That was a very sad day.  By now, my car was leaking oil.  A friend suggested that I take it to her mechanic.  They told me that there was a hole in the engine block, and it would cost $3200 to fix.  I didn't have that kind of money.  I had used up most of the $5000 I got from my friend to pay for motels.  The mechanic told me that I would have to put in a quart of oil every time I drove my car.  I went to an auto supply store and bought a case of oil.

 The first of September 2009, I ran out of money for the motel.  I checked out of the motel; loaded up my stuff in my car; put a quart of oil in the engine; and drove over to Columbia Mall to look for a job.  Some friends had offered to pay for another week at the In-Town Suites for me.  Nobody was hiring.  I decided to head over to the In-Town Suites from there on I-20.  It wasn't too far, plus the oil light didn't come on, so I thought I could make it over there.  I got down to the Main St. exit, when my car started to smoke.  I pulled off of the exit.  I heard a boom.  The engine had blown up.  Smoke was everywhere.  I got the car to a safe spot off the side of the road up the exit ramp and called AAA.  They came and towed my car to their office on Forest Drive.  The initial diagnosis there was that my car was dead, and it would cost more to fix it than it was worth.  I called my brother, and he came and got me to take me to his house.  Being materialistic such as I was, I had felt I had lost it all.