Ohh..
"Daddy, why are we eating cold beans straight from the tin?" Hearing that from your own six-year-old daughter on her actual birthday cuts through you deeper than any knife. The prepaid gas meter had died, so the radiators were like ice. I couldn’t even top it up because I needed the electric to last until morning, and buying her a £4 cake from Tesco was completely out of the question. If you’ve never worked the night shift in a distribution warehouse outside Leeds, let me tell you what it’s like. Twelve hours on freezing concrete, breathing in diesel fumes, with a scanner strapped to your arm that tracks your bathroom breaks to the second. Spend three minutes instead of two throwing up from exhaustion, and a supervisor flags you on his iPad. You destroy your spine, rub your feet raw in steel-toecap boots, and earn just enough to watch inflation wipe out every penny before payday. Yesterday was Lily’s birthday. I booked that day off eight weeks in advance. But at 1 PM, my manager Mark called me in: "Three lads didn’t show up, Kev. Your leave is cancelled. You’re on the heavy sorting line until 2 AM. If you walk out, you’re sacked on the spot." I swallowed what was left of my self-respect and begged him. He just laughed and said the Jobcentre had fifty men ready to take my boots. I walked out to the smoking shelter in the freezing rain, my hands violently shaking. I checked my Monzo app — £31.40 left to last five days. Right then, I remembered Gaz from Bay 4. Last week he showed the lads a withdrawal for over three grand on his phone, laughing about some mobile app called Royal Spins. I’d never gambled in my life. I always thought it was a mug’s game. But when you're completely cornered and humiliated, your brain stops making rational decisions. I downloaded the app, put in £20 of my last £31, and opened that fishing slot Gaz mentioned. Set it to 20p spins. And within fifteen minutes, the balance was zero. Gone. Nothing. Not a single bonus. A wave of cold,
