Sam's call this morning is like many that come to the Ladle office on a daily basis. Sam has a crisis. Sam is desperate. He's about to lose his storage unit. The thing is, storage places don't just put your stuff on the curb when you're seriously behind in your rent, they lock you out. Then, after a certain period, they auction off the contents of your unit to someone who buys it all, sight unseen. Sam pleads with me, "I only need $288 and I'll pay you back, I swear." I have to tell Sam we do not do loans. "But all my mom's paintings are in there. She was really good--even taught art for years. I just can't lose them; I've got to keep them for my son."
Sam has a 7-year old son he sees on weekends ever since his girlfriend kicked him out a year ago. Sam has had run-ins with the law ever since adolescence. He tells me about how his mom always used to get him a lawyer to get him off the hook when he was a teenager. She is no longer around to do that, but Sam keeps going to court for a variety of things like ignored traffic tickets.
In fact, Sam tells me he's just this morning realized he missed a court date which was for earlier this week. It just slipped his mind. He no longer even has the car he got the tickets in because it was towed to impound three months ago when he was caught driving without a license or insurance. That's when he first called me--to ask for a loan to get his car out of the tow yard. It was going to cost over a thousand dollars Losing his car was a double whammy because he'd been sleeping in it since being kicked out of his girlfriend's house. Now he is sleeping in the back yard of some guy he knows in Golden Hill.
Sam is feeling like his whole life is falling apart, and I can't really argue with him on that point. Things really are a mess and, since losing his car have only gotten worse. Sam feels sorry for himself and like the world has turned against him. I give him a tough-love pep talk telling him to quit playing the victim, straighten out the legal problems he's brought on himself and then set about rebuilding his life. I tell him I believe that, if his mom's paintings are really as important to him as he says, he can hustle up the money by day labor or begging--"flying a sign" which he has done before--or borrowing from friends and family. The only thing Ladle Fellowship will offer at this point is to store the paintings for a month or two if he can recover them. We'll also let him do court-ordered community service here. We'll pray for him. We'll encourage him. That's about it.
Will he be successful? I don't know. I hope so. I' too would like for Sam Jr. to see the paintings his grandma did.
