Okay ladies…how many of you ‘control’ the money in your household? You, know, pay the bills, do the shopping, saving, spending, stretching every dollar…running the house? I do 99.9% of it here at the funny farm. Ever since I was on my own at the age of 19, I learned to stretch, save, spend, pay, and yell at the money coming in, going out, and slipping through my fingers. Well, a few days ago I had all our bills stretched out over the table, my check book was out along with the box of Kleenex to wipe away my tears as I said goodbye to every penny. Chad came in, sat down and asked a stupid question…”What you doing”? You see, the man has never seen a bill, he barely knows what a check book is…the debit card he understands…he can carry it, push it into little machines that spits money out at him even when if there’s a red light flashing warning him “STOP!! NOT ENOUGH FUNDS”!!
I looked at him with annoyance and told him that I was paying this weeks bills. He kinda looked at the paper covering our large kitchen table and asked, “all this”??? I said, “yes dear, all this and there’s more that I’m ignoring”. He replied, “you do this every week”?! I’m thinking to myself, ‘where has the man been the last 18 year’s’ ??? So, I thought I would explain to him the ‘paying bills 101’. After showing him 100 pieces of paper with totals, balances, warning, threats, happy remarks, good credit, bad credit, you’ve got to be joking credit, I’m coming for your first born threats, apply for for an increase (I like those companies)…etc, I noticed he was staring at me with the same expression the llamas use when I’m lecturing them about barn rules! His eyes were glazed over as if in a zone, not hearing me. I snapped my fingers in his face and he jolted back to reality.
I said, “don’t worry honey, I have it under control, I just borrow from this guy to pay that guy as I put this guy on hold so this guy can leave us alone as this guy tries to figure out how he got skipped…again! I saw the glazing of his eyes again, so I suggested he go out to the barn to feed, water and chase the pig. He got up so fast and ran out the door that I didn’t see him move! At least he was out of my hair and doing what I need most…chasing that pig back into her pen as the llamas do a side step dance to avoid ‘that creature’!