Financial Bind

This whole being strapped for cash thing is getting old. I find myself seething at the core with contempt for those who continue to get richer while people with everyday lifestyles find themselves floundering against an ever growing wall of poverty. It disgusts me that I’m going to be banking on Ocean being extremely intelligent--scoring herself a couple of scholarships just so that she can get into college. Don’t get me wrong, we still have to master this rolling over from back to front thing first, and college seems far far away, yet I don’t have the faith in a resilient economy that I would really need to ignore the ticking college clock.

John and I decided that we only would have one child; and no, it is not because she is a gloriously cute handful—which indeed she is, instead, it is due to the fact that I don’t want to feed my three apples of my eyes Top Ramen for the rest of our lives. I find it difficult to swallow the very idea of providing for my one and only daughter, I certainly cannot imagine providing for two or God forbid three children.

I don’t really have much of a direction with this line of thinking, nor do I possess some witty quip for coping with this financial crisis, I am simply at a loss as to how to make the red dollar signs stop parading across my eyelids when I lay my head down at night. Money doesn’t make the world go ‘round, but is sure can be an aid for some much needed shut eye. Seriously though, I’ve resorted to my last known method of dealing with a situation which seems completely out of my control—rather than going out and buying bundles of lottery tickets (the thought has crossed my mind), I think that I will simply bitch and moan about it right here, in my office, in my beautiful house, while my beautiful daughter sleeps for another hour and while I wait for my husband to awaken for yet another day of hard work as a cop.

So, with that said, I warn you, I’m not so coherent these days when it comes to discussions involving what I can afford and what I can’t, for my answer is always a resounding, “nope, nope definitely can’t afford that.” I hate the fact that John and I splurged on buying a much needed garbage disposal at Lowes several months ago, (why is it that people don’t feel that garbage disposals are an integral part of a well run kitchen?), and for that matter, why in a house built in 2002, would a garbage disposal not have been installed automatically? I mean, geez, was it just something special about that year? My 2002 Explorer came stock with a CASSETTE PLAYER, no CD player, just a cassette player—what is that?

But I digress, so, in my garage, I have a garbage disposal sitting in a box, with all of the necessary installation apparatus for said piece of wonderful equipment. Here’s where my dilemma really kicks in—I can’t afford to hire someone to come out and install it; but on the other hand I am not savvy enough, nor do I trust myself by any means to mess with both plumbing and electricity. So, do I buy a book and read up on garbage disposal installation techniques? Or do I bite the bullet and call a plumber? Ha, quite the conundrum, honestly, I do neither, and here I sit with a garbage disposal sitting in a box in my garage. It mocks me when I walk past it, sometimes I can hear it snicker. Yep, it’s a fact; this financial crisis has turned one more person into a raving loon.