Saving the family

It feels like there isn't a good way to write this. Two days ago my husband was arrested. He had 8 warrants out of Carrollton TX, they were all type C misdemeanor tickets. And almost all of them were for expired inspection stickers on his car, expired registration, and lack of car insurance.

You see back in 2010 we had the misfortune of being very very poor small business owners. For perspective  of where our life was, the gas had been cut off in house for months, the elctricity was only on because of the good will of the man that was supposed to cut if off, I was pregnant, lord knows how late we were on rent and just before our son was born we ended up homeless, just living at work and in our cars. Which were in terrible shape, ultimately mine caught fire. But we couldn't stop driving because then we wouldn't be able to work. It was very damned if you, damned if you don't.

Our business shut down and my husband tried working for a convention center while we stayed at an extended stay hotel. When that fell through he went to the manager and begged to do work there to cover rent. And they hired him. We had our last car repo'd and we lived lean on the wage he made working for the hotel for several years.

It was made clear to him that he'd never be more then a minimum wage employee there so this year he looked for other work and he finally found a job as an assistant manager at a restaurant. In order to get that job he had to get a provisional drivers license (since the tickets had caused his license to be suspended). Looking into it we found out that he owed Carrollton like $1200 and we borrowed the money to pay them off so he could get this DL and the better job.

Tuesday morning the cops showed up and said he still had tickets out of Carrollton and took him away. They say that he owes them another $3323 and the only way he will be released is if we pay it or he sits it out. At a rate of $100 a day he will be in jail for just over a month. I've spoken to his boss and he doesn't know if Michael will still have a job if he's stuck in jail that whole time. Michael is the bread winner in the house, I stay home with our son full time. If I clear out our savings account we have $700 but rent is due soon. I've spoken to our parents and best friend and even if we scraped every bit we have together we can't get him out. I can't even talk to him because I can't drive to Carrollton to see him and my phone won't take collect calls.

All we have been trying to do since we found out we were having a baby was try to pull ourselves up so we can provide for him. Loosing his job will crush us and having him in jail is devastating. Our son doesn't understand why Daddy isn't home yet or why I'm sad. And I've got no one to watch him so I can't just go out and find a job to provide, not that jobs are easy and quick to find to start with.

I know that this is very long and boils down to needing to get a man out of jail. But that man is an amazing father and husband who just has suffered from being poverty class. The job he's got now is the best opportunity he's had in a long while to provide.