OneVoice - March 21, 2008
March 21st, 2008 | by Tom |A number of folks have helped come to the rescue of the United States economy this week, from the buyout of Bear Stearns to the Fed lowering interest rates again. While those actions received the big headlines, we must not forget the efforts of my wife Laurie and her partner in excessive spending Fran.
These two women, whom I believe are twin sisters of different mothers, seem to feel individually empowered to keep the economy afloat by any means necessary, typically doing so by making purchases they do not need with money they do not have, leaving me and Fran’s husband Mike to find the means by which to cover their debts (which at this point will result in the two of us working well into our nineties, based on current estimates).
The first question you may ask yourself is whether I have any examples of this behavior, to which I would reply how many examples would you like. We just renovated our kitchen - actually the renovation was done back in June, but I just finished paying for it, or so I thought. In the last few weeks, I’ve seen new pots and pans (the old pots and pans apparently don’t work with the new appliances, although they seemed to be working just fine until a couple of weeks ago) and new spaghetti bowls. What was wrong with the old spaghetti bowls? Well, Laurie said they were too big for the brand new kitchen cabinets, even though most of the cabinets have room for lots more stuff. Then she told me they just didn’t match the rest of her dinnerware. So now, we are trying to unload not just one but two sets of spaghetti bowls to anyone who wants them.
I spent several hours on Sunday assembling a new wall unit for the powder room we just renovated as part of the kitchen renovation. Laurie had the box hidden in her car for a while, then took it out of the car and left it in the garage so that I could see it (and have a mild heart attack). The box was big enough to suggest it was already assembled and all I had to do was hang it. That suggestion turned out to be false. First, I had to assemble it and then hang it, and do so without drilling holes in any of the plumbing running behind the powder room wall. After completing the project and proudly displaying my work, Laurie asked me, “Do you think it’s too big for the room?” Isn’t that something you validate before you buy the piece? Not if you’re Laurie - buy first, find out it might not fit later.
That’s not how this story ends, though. After polling several family members about whether they thought the cabinet was too big, Laurie sighed and said, “Well, I’ll have Fran come over and take a look”, which will just prompt Fran to make a extravagant, unnecessary purchase of her own.
Sorry, Mike!
Tags: OneVoice
By terry on Mar 21, 2008
When I read the first sentence, I thought you were going to talk about JP Morgan Chase.
Funny!
By Mike on Mar 21, 2008
My chest exploded when my wife, the infamous Fran, received the call from Laurie. You are absolutely right The twins of different mothers have have never heard of credit crisis, do not understand the national debt, but they do their part to keep the economy afloat. It’s a bit disconcerting when Amex sends Thank You monthly praising Fran’s accomplishments.