Daughter Begins College

Anyone reading this blog on a regular basis may be pleased, and perhaps shocked, to note that my daughter will begin attending college next week.

For the last month I have felt like the captain of a ship guiding his craft through a pack of dangerous icebergs.

With no remorse I can say farewell to South East Springfield High - a long overdue good riddance. The gerrymandered district map which forced my daughter into that school is obscene, but that's no longer my concern.

It was just a few weeks ago when my daughter forced me and her mother to allow her to finish high school early, and I can tell you she had no intention of attending another school until September of 2009. It was going to be party time all the way to Fall of 09, however, through some careful guidance we encouraged her to begin college early. Yippee!

As if by a design - drawn by Satan himself - this last week has been made even more troublesome by the total destruction of the automobile my daughter uses to get to school, and work.

No, it wasn't my daughter's fault, it was a cab driver's fault - more about that in my next post.

So I am happy now for the first time in a long time. I may be broke, but I'm happier - sort of.

When I first envisioned my daughter attending college I didn't really feel she would have felt it necessary to have put me and her mother through four years of living hell before doing so - ah teenagers.

Note also that by my daughter graduating high school early that it just leaves me with a seventeen year old girl who will probably continue to do all those things which I, and Johnie Law, disapprove of.

Yet, a major life goal has been achieved. Just five more years of utter poverty folks!

Oh, did I mention - not one single penny of financial aid for college - not one. Seems that despite our paycheck to paycheck existence that my wife and I make too damned much money to qualify for any college aid at all. Not even work-study is available.

Sigh. So just direct me to the Old Tippy Canoe Country Club folks, I'm ready for the good life!

Wife Steals From Husband's Wallet

My Incredible Twenty Five Dollar Gift Cards!

My employer is super cheap when it comes to year end bonuses. Year end bonuses are the politically correct term for Christmas bonuses. We used to get frozen turkeys, but that ended years ago, and now we get something else.

We were treated to a buffet just before Christmas, but I'd have rather have been given a larger "bonus".

My bonus this year?

A twenty five dollar gift card!

O.K. I'm not mentioning the corporate bonus which is an entirely different, and much bigger bonus so maybe my employer isn't so cheap after all.

Did I mention that there's little possibility that I will be getting a corporate bonus because of the bad economy? Sad, but true.

Which means that the twenty five dollar gift card will probably be it this year.

Knowing this fact made the little gift card bitter yet sweet. I felt its contempt, but wasn't about to toss it back in anyone's face. Money is money after all.

So after receiving it I stowed my little gift card in my wallet.

Coincidentally, I was lucky enough to have my name pulled out of fishbowl, and won another gift card.

I tucked my little gift cards away, and devised a secret plan. I would combine both gift cards, and one night I'd run out to Best Buy, and buy a computer game - maybe World of Warcraft.

Yes, that was my secret plan. A secret plan so secret that I only half thought it would be possible.


Wife Steals My Gift Cards - For the Good of the Family

Tonight I was confounded when I looked in my wallet, and found the cards missing.

Turns out my wife had rifled through my wallet, and moved the cards to her purse.

Yes, my wife thought, and I'm sure she still does, that her purse is the best place for my $25 Christmas bonus gift cards.

Needless to say, I objected rather strenuously to her approach, and was given the cards back.

This whole sordid event reminded me of some knowledge a wise old drunkard friend of mine shared with me years ago. Female readers beware for it sounds a bit harsh, but that's just too bad, because it's also true.


A Man's Money Belongs To The Family (i.e., Wife).

My friend once told me the following,

If you stop at McDonald's and buy yourself a cheeseburger, by the time you get home you better have it eaten because your wife will say that if you buy something for yourself that you're stealing from the family.

On the other hand, my old friend said, if she goes out to McDonald's with the kids, and you get nothing because you're at work, then that's o.k., because that was for the family.

What's hers is hers, and what's yours is hers - because it's in the interest of the family.

And that quite simply seems to be the basis of my marriage.


Her Money But His Debt

It's quite alright for my wife to insist that I max out my credit cards to buy this or that for the family, but once they are maxed out, my wife reminds me of how irresponsible I am for having so much credit card debt.

And if she gives me an extra hundred to put down on a card, she always tells me that it is her money going to pay my debt - even though I have nothing to show for that debt, and know full well that it went to buy things for her, and the kid.

In American society within the lofty confines of marriage there appears to be a double standard. Even though women earn their own wages, and in some cases earn more than their male spouses, it is still o.k. for a wife to assume that her husband's money is family money - and therefore hers to use, manipulate, manage, and even steal.

At least for now my two twenty five dollar gift cards are back in my wallet - but guess what - they will probably be back in my wife's purse by tomorrow.

For in the end there will always be some reason that my wife will surely provide which will convince me not to be selfish, but instead to turn over everything I have for the good of the family.