The Good Old Days

There was a time when I would work thru my busy season, spending every waking hour in the office with nothing to look forward to but the bulging bank account. I'd work for two and a half months straight and, having not had a social life or any free time, my bills would be minimal. The month after this period, I'd sleep in, rest up, take it easy and reward myself for all that hard work by spending some of that hard earned coin.

Well, I'm married with kids now and guess what? I've got lots to look forward to. I will finish up this hectic week by not being able to rest and not being able to enjoy the fruits of my labor. My wife Spendoogin McNoogin (not her real name) has taken it upon herself to spend my hard earned money faster than I can earn it and my kids, Divaoogin and Terroroogin (not their real names) have already alerted me to all the things they want to do now that they've got daddy back. So, the rest will have to come later, like when I'm dead. And that might not be a bad thing because, when I'm dead, the insurance kicks in and Spendoogin will then have a lot more of my money to spend.

I just got the amex bill for the last month. Over this period, I have been in the office every single day. I haven't taken the amex card out of my pocket once, except to give it to my secretary when she needed to get some office supplies. My spending for the month is about $1200. This includes postage of $500, a few hundred in office supplies, some dry cleaning bills and my internet and phone bill. My amex bill is topping out at ten grand. The other $8800 seems to be a result of Spendoogin's newfound spare time. I don't mind her using my card for food, household shit, the kids etc but I'm fairly sure the Lord & Taylor charge ($943) and the Bergdorf charge ($839) are hers and not the kids. If they are the kids, I'm going to have to explain the coolness of stores like H&M where, for $15 you can get an incredibly cool jacket that, when the kids grow out of it in 2 weeks, you won't feel like a schmuck for overspending on what amounts to a clothing rental. The most annoying part of this is that Spendoogin overbuys everything with the idea that she can always return it later. Unfortunately, she might wait a month or two to return things so I am stuck paying for everything now and, hopefully, getting a credit later. I won't even get into her moronic method of not paying for the things she expects to return, eating the penalties for underpayment instead.

This month's bill also has the Disney trip on there. I know, this is a family thing and I shouldn't complain about it. I agree. That's not the issue. I agreed to go. My beef here is that, knowing there's a $5,000 (the airfare and deposit were on last month's bill) bitchslap on the card, why would Spendoogin go and drop another $2,000 of shopping spree shit on me. Is she so in the dark that she doesn't think about the pain in my bank account? Does she simply not care about it? Does she not know that people are hurting all over the world and, perhaps, now is not the best time to be shopping? Spendoogin is a sucker for a sale. She'll come home with some horrific looking shoes and say "look, they were $29,598 marked down to $11, isn't that a great deal?"

When I say, "they're ugly and, for the record, when you pay $11 for a pair of shoes, they're $11 shoes," she gets offended. She is turned on by the discount. She's got an illness. She cannot resist the sale. What she doesn't realize is, we are heading towards what might be the worst retail season ever and the sales are going to get even better. She's probably pissing away even more money by not waiting but, again, it's that red tag marked SALE that gets her hot.

Hmmm. Sales turn her on? Slashed prices make her hot?


I wonder. Should I get "MARKED DOWN MUST GO" tattooed below my belt line? How about simply hanging a tag that reads "SALE: Half Off" on my "mcnoogin?" Not only will the sale tag get her all hot and ready for love, the half off will make it seem like, at one time, it was, actually bigger.