I called Pauline last night and basically begged for the $50 she owes me. I hated to even ask. I know how hard it is. I felt terrible. However, with all the bills paid, we're back to very tight again and she did tell me she'd pay me on the first, but didn't get paid what she should have. I told her I'd help her figure out her hours because the guy she works for has not been paying her properly and she said as soon as she gets the one check she's expecting, she'll pay me.

Well, that's another thing...the guy she works for.

He's in a wheelchair, but apparently because she and Steve have been going through their paces in their marriage, he thought it was a good time to perv on her.

One day when she went to catheterize him, he had an erection. She asked him,"What's that for?" She asked because she thought the answer would be "because I have to pee," but the answer was "It's for you." And then he was stroking himself beneath a blanket.

Pauline completely freaked out. She explained that she is happily married, which he tried to contradict by saying,"But I thought you were separated." She explained that they are working it out and very much in love, which they are, even though I'd like to give Steve a good swift kick in the ass every so often for stupid men things he does.

She said he backed down some, but over the weekend, he called and invited her over. She simply ignored the call. And the sexual innuendo has been pretty flagrant when she's been working.

She's finally screwed up her courage and today is going to tell him to knock it off or she'll quit. Of course, the problem for her is that this is all under the table, so she has no legal recourse and she really needs this money for her kids. It's not like she is blowing it on drugs or something. It goes to get her kids things they need. And she's going to go to school so she can get a nursing degree and do something with herself.

The double drag for me is that this man is someone I work with. I used to think he was so nice. Now, I simply don't know whether to feel sorry for him or push over his wheelchair. I could I suppose possibly just do both. In actuality, though, I'm simply being as civil as I have to and not engaging him in conversation. I know about the time I do, I'll kick his ass...wheelchair or no. Pity or no.

For me it would be a blow struck for the summer I spent working for the Soil Conservation Service near Lodi, where I had one guy doubting my qualifications in the green house (even though I'd worked in greenhouses for over four years) and all the plants in the greenhouse had all the long spindly earmarks of being severely overwatered. Another guy and I were trying to get 500 buckwheat seedlings sprouted and buckwheat is a drought resistant plant, thus, doesn't like a lot of water and this guy was drowning our plants on us, changing the watering adjustments we'd made to the watering system to sabotage our work. When we moved them from the greenhouse to save them he came out with a hose and hosed them down so badly that the guy I was working with and I went to the big boss and screamed about it. The Evil Overwater's reaction was that it was my fault.

I asked how it was my fault that he was overwatering the fuck out of drought resistant plants. He sputtered and the big boss told him to cut it out and leave our plant projects alone.

The final straw at that job for me, after months of getting innuendo from another married guy was when looking across a deep ditch at this guy, I told him to fix his fly and looked away, he made some comment along the lines of "Only a cocksucker would notice that." I was absolutely nauseous for days. When it occurred to me that I only felt nauseous on work days, that it was probably related to work (and there was no possible way I was pregnant), I threatened to sue their asses off.

I made them go through sexual harrassment education classes.

And I remembered the pamphlet left on the back of the toilet in the woman's bathroom by the woman who left to go spray mosquitos for the state: "What is sexual harrassment?"