No Funny in the Money

I think a sense of humor helps me get through the more difficult aspects of existence. Being generally optimistic is hard work, but mostly I believe I succeed and my life is better for it.

 

When it comes to money, there's very little funny.

 

It's like when, in Meet Me in St. Louis, Rose says, "I hate, loathe, despise and abominate money!" Mr. Smith quips, "You also spend it."

 

And that's most of our relationships with money, isn't it? We don't like it and yet we embrace it every day, justify spending it, run out of it, get some more of it, try to be frugal with it, justify spending and so on.

 

And this time of year, in the good ol' U S of A, I can see the strain in the face of most people. Money is running out and most folks are in the process of spending more of it than they should. In short, they are mostly miserable.

I was in Walmart the other day (don't ask, we don't shop there, I didn't buy anything and I feel guilty about just going through those doors) and this young couple was shopping for an appliance. I think it was a heater, or a blender or something. Anyway, the man had picked something out and the woman was insisting they could not afford it. The man continued to state that they needed this particular appliance and the woman was embarrassed and pissed that she had to keep telling him to go put it the F back. The escalation was quick and filled with unexpressed, barely tempered rage.

 

It was awful. It made my gut hurt. It made me want to go put that thing on my credit card and give it to them so they'd just stop hating each other for that moment. But I didn't. I just held it all in my abdomen for a few minutes, swallowed the stress of the situation and got the hell out of there.

See? No funny in the money.

 

I'm going to try and find some funny, try to remember that in a year or even six months the money situations of today will not exist or be much, MUCH less important, and mostly try to find the important quiet moments of family and the almost narcotic scent of pine and the precious smiles and laughter of those I love.

I so appreciate the life I'm in and the incredible people in it with me.

 

"Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas

Let your heart be light.

Next year all our troubles will be out of sight" - Esther Smith

 

Thanks for reading, off to write... and chill out.

 

Casey

 

Comments

  1. Brian Miller8/12/12 04:59

    i feel you man....money can jack you up pretty good...its the number one cause of divorce...and you are right that the money situations change as well...and what we find stressful we will not tomorrow...

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

This is where you come in...

Popular posts from this blog

Hotel

Image
I feel like every time I come over to Crescent City I write the same blog post. You know, appreciate my family, wish I was home, like driving by myself, love my wife, want to hug my kids, blah blah blah. So let's try something different. When you are away from home and by yourself: What's on the radio on the road? I've gone through stages for sure. NPR, scanning for local stations, my own iPod music etc. But for the last couple of years it's been audiobooks and nothing else. I belong to audible.com now and get a new book every month for $15. I have a bumper sticker that says, "Shhhh, I'm listening to a book." What kind of crap do you eat? Do you go to a restaurant? My love has no trouble at all spending the evening by herself at a busy restaurant. I'm not made that way. I usually buy some frozen garbage I can nuke in the hotel microwave that will make my tummy ache for the rest of the night. What kind of TV do you watch? Channel 45 for me here, whi...
Read more

Her Cottage

Image
She lives in a one room, cozy cottage she built in the middle of a lush green forest. Her home sits in a grassy clearing, backed up to the base of a fern-covered cliff where in the Spring, sweet clean water trickles down to her waiting barrels. Tiny, baby blue flowers grow amongst the ferns on tender, too-thin stems of pale green. She is young, and happy, and full of hope. One day a pebble dislodges from the very top of the cliff. It’s not much larger than her smallest finger. It tumbles as it falls, briefly touching its brothers along the way. Seeing the pebble’s joy, the brothers break free and join his race down the steep slope. Others join, larger friends, who bring larger friends. And soon they are singing a thunderous roar of glee as they race each other ever faster down. She hears the song and runs out of her cabin, looking up to see them ripping through the ferns, plucking the flowers and consuming all in their bliss. She backs away, then trips. As she hits the gr...
Read more

What Nurtures You?

Image
One of the coolest chicks in the blogosphere suggested that we all come up with twenty things that nurture us. Everyone who has taken this challenge seriously has approached it in a slightly different way, which is one of the things that makes blog communities so cool… the differences within the similarities. For me, I must define. Nurture - to care for and encourage the growth or development of Since really only humans can care for and nurture other humans, what we’re really looking for here are twenty things that inspire us to nurture ourselves. Here we go: 1 – The scents of my woman Which makes me think of the feel of her skin, which makes me think of other nurturing things I will not bring up… 2 – “Hey Dad,” as I walk in the front door at night If those two words don’t ease my soul, nothing will. 3 – Golf The last seven years of my life would not be the same without those long walks and the man-bonding previously missing in nearly my entire adult life. 4 – The smell and fee...
Read more