Tag Archives: financial planning

Hello, I’ll be bribing you today

Someone is coming to appraise my Indian burial ground, and I have left a casual, shabby chic vintage suitcase filled with non-sequential bills by the front door, on an adorable antique stool draped with a lace doily made by nuns. I also made such concessions as putting on pants and boiling a pot of cinnamon water on the stove so it smells like I cook.

Not much is new other than my ethical violations. Luckily, I have a flunky who will go to trial for me. Everyone should have a good patsy. I am naming my next dog Scooter Libby, which is disarmingly perky.

Things are things, and this is not Darfur, and I am not an Austin Powers impersonator. Life is grand! There is a shopping channel just for rehab. It’s sort of like SkyMall.

Let’s draw the line at genocide

Saw that on the news last night in a story about Fidelity’s dealings with oil companies meddling in the Sudan. Fidelity says they have a legal responsibility to provide the highest returns to consumers, therefore they won’t rethink their choices. The reporter asked “So Fidelity is not willing to draw the line at genocide?” What a novel policy. A little mutiliation and oppression would be fine, Fidelity, as business is business, but draw that line!

Yesterday a ybab played a fun game called “Let’s cry all day.” Yes, let’s. Of course she settled right down as soon as her father came home, and her fever and general malaise finished by the time the doctor charged us $30 to say “Fluid in the ears, no infection. Teething.” Which I knew, but wouldn’t I be a jerk if I were wrong? On the way back, we saw dogs, so I guess that wasn’t a total waste of a leaving of the house.

I’ve been meaning to write about NBC’s segment on cocktail playdates last week. A blogger  got totally sandbagged by a stern robot of an expert, who asserted that women must never, ever drink in the presence of a child, and anyone who has even one drink has Issues and needs to learn a Healthy Way of Coping. I couldn’t write about this at the time I watched the segment, because it was 8 AM, and I was already drunk, and so were all my friends. Don’t you put Kahlua and whiskey in your coffee*? Now, we have been known to have a glass of wine with dinner because we don’t like coping. We do like wine, though. But, to the blogger’s point, there is a man around to keep me in line. Unforunately, that man is Mr. H, who has never actually managed to do this.

Meredith Viera had her “disapproving mother hen” face on throughout the segment. Perhaps she should go back to The View, where she and Barbara Walters and Rosie O’Donnell and that pretty-but-dumb little one can talk about being disgusted by breastfeeding instead. Rosie O’Donnell apparently didn’t let her partner breastfeed their baby past six weeks because she didn’t want to miss out on bonding too. Well, I have news for you: a ybab prefers the perfectly teat-less Mr. H at least 90% of the time. As a society, we’re OK with genocide, as long as it’s profitable, but titties, man, titties. Those are really scary. Especially when attached to drunk women. They are like twin frozen margarita machines, right there on the chest, where people can see them!

*This reminds me of one particularly awful job I had. My office wife and I would go hit Bruegger’s every morning for coffee and a bagel, and then we would nip into the liquor store next door for, well, nips to add to the coffee. And thus renewed, we would go back to our sublet lair in an unheated church basement, clap our leg irons back on, and enable the purchase of cut-rate vacation packages. You know, make the internet happen. But we drew the line at genocide!

Jack Bauer doesn’t recycle, and he doesn’t even feel bad about it

So the word on the street is that no one likes Jack Bauer. Tell me about it. I don’t like it any more than you men. I don’t even watch 24. My ex-almost-brother-in-law, an actual crackhead, found it too hard to follow. I can eat fifty eggs. You don’t want to see what the inside of my head looks like. It’s like that Mucinex commercial, except with movie quotes hanging down like streamers. Oh, there’s one on my shoe.

A planet must be doing a thing. Quelle mysterioso. Will I finally roll over that 401(k) from 2001? That requires getting a signature from someone who ought to be in jail. I think that’s been the sticking point. Will I stop silently judging people at the grocery store? Only if I start judging them out loud instead.

Tune in tomorrow to find out how fat Jack Bauer’s mama was. Well, I will just tell you now to save you the trip. She was so fat that he had to starve her for three months in a crawl space.

Whoa dilly

I am in the land of mundane tasks. That is right next to the Island of Misfit Toys. The cat has started a pots n’ pans band with the ybab. I asked them to be quiet while I was calling Fidelity to tell them to do something to my no-money, and they laughed at me. Then Fidelity laughed at me and said I had to DOWNLOAD A FORM AND MAIL IT LIKE A PEASANT, even though their site said to call a rep to access this feature. Some feature. Some pig. It’s OK, a ybab didn’t need a college fund anyway. She’ll get through on pluck and determination and a last minute made up scholarship essay just like her ma.

Speaking of the peasantry, I had to lie to them on engraved stationary the other day. Bless their little hearts. They think they are doing something good, but their puny offerings merely sadden and then enrage me. Back to the discount chain with your slutty infant outfits! I will thank you through pursed lips. My, what a colorful outfit. My. The accompanying rash is also colorful. Those pants make a six-month-old into a regular Tara Reid, which is what we all want in our heart of hearts. There is no nice way to just say “Please don’t buy gifts ever agin. We’ll still love you, if not love you even more.”

Mommy drinks because you cry

Today a baby went out of the house dressed like an Olsen twin yet again. Perhaps we will get better at matching when someone stops soiling various parts of her outfit so frequently. Until then, we remain “boho.” Or around the house, “naked and easily hosed down.”

In another two years, I expect to be able to discuss things that do not relate to a baby. That’s not totally true. If you’d like to discuss consolidating student loans or car insurance discounts, I’m your huckleberry. Would you like to talk about how my wretched, wretched condo won’t sell for what I paid for it? Also, I had a dream that I bought a bunch of bananas housing a tarantula.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, a baby is teething, so I have to put some whiskey on my gums.

A baby shan’t attend college now

A baby celebrated three months of excreting yesterday! Guess how she celebrated that. Just go on and guess. Keeping her alive all that time was approximately ten trillion times harder than keeping Sea Monkeys alive, and that’s hard anyway.

She’ll never learn to read because we can’t afford reading now. Mr. H toted up what his comic book collection would be worth, and we had a little moment of ka-ching! But then he called his parents and found out they gave it away at a yard sale recently. Oh, snap. Oh.

The locals on the Yahoo! Group continue to infuriate me. They are now calling pre-meetings for meetings. If I wanted to go to meetings about meetings, I’d have a goddamn job. There is an issue with flood insurance that may end in litigation with the management company, and one bokka booka crazy woman suggested that someone go to the registry of deeds and compile a list of people who actually owned when the flood took place, so as to exclude people who did not own at the time from the meeting. Yes, because PEOPLE LOVE TO GO TO EXTRA FUCKING MEETINGS THAT DON’T CONCERN THEM. People volunteer to attend meetings left and right, and it takes some super sleuthing to stop them. Everything is a conspiracy.

If you stand in line for twenty minutes, the terrorists have won

I went to the post office again today. I know, I know. The selling everything I own campaign is a bit trying, although it’s fun to imagine an obese shut-in in San Diego enjoying my used copy of The South Beach Diet. It’s a good thing I didn’t bring the wolverine, because she would have launched herself across the counter and gummed her way through the clerk’s jugular. She doesn’t like waiting. She was home watching General Hospital with a bottle of Southern Comfort, if you were wondering. No, she was poking a dead bird in the park with her father. What else?

Some dark-skinned men were attempting to mail some documents written in a non-Latin alphabet to a foreign country. The clerk was flummoxed and kept making them fill out more forms. She finally plugged some stuff into the computer, only to announce with a quaver that the package would arrive on… September 11th! Suddenly all the other clerks had to come over and inspect the package, while attempting to be casual. One of the men started making a cell phone call in a FOREIGN LANGUAGE. I was just waiting for the guy behind me to yell “Let’s roll” and strangle him with a roll of stamps. They were Indian. See, not even the bad brown people!

Mr. H is joining Content Challenge with a photo a day. A baby sits up like a little Rory Calhoun.

Oh God, I am so weary of opening proxy envelopes. How did you know?

Today my checking acccount contains $664.44*. So darn close to beastliness. Clearly Mr. H did not get the Satanic Memo when he made that ill-considered ATM withdrawal yesterday. Learn some of the math, fucko!

People are all “So watcha gonna do if yer baby is born on SIX SIX SIX?” And I’m all “Yell and grunt, probably?” Mr. H pointed out that we live in the United States of Wackistan, and there must be some Fred Phelps-type groups fixin’ to pitchfork all children born on this date until they fly up to Jesus. But don’t they have some gay, gay marriages to worry about? We decided that if that feeble election year federal thing passes, we’ll get divorced. Yay! I always knew I’d make a good divorcee.

My future ex-husband is making me eggs. BRB!!!!!!!!

*Yes, we’re poor. All the bills come out in the first half of the month! The second half of the month is spent replenishing the room full of cocaine.

Let’s pretend

Let’s say that there is a lady who runs out of checks. She is a beautiful and kind lady. She has very healthy teeth. Full disclosure: she could use a pedicure. Anyway, this lady says “Hmm, I am out of checks. Although most of my bills are paid electronically, this could pose a problem.” She calls the check ordering company. They assure her that her checks will be there in a few days. They are not. So she calls back and complains. They blame DHL. DHL has never heard of these checks. So the lady waits a few more days, and then the lady has to pay her fucking federal taxes and quarterly taxes with money orders, like poor people. The lady waited til the last possible minute to get the cursed money orders, hoping against hope that DHL would come through. The lady comes home from mailing the money orders (which cost $3 each because she does not have a GOLD account). “Look,” says the friendly three-legged dog. There is a package from DHL! On the steps!

In other news, the teller at the bank thinks the parasite will be HUGE. The dry cleaning lady thinks the parasite will be TINY. Either I am a compulsive overreater, or I am starving the parasite. I can’t be sure. I should have gotten a third opinion from the grocery checker, but she was too busy drawing me in to a conversation on whether or not that was Eva Longoria on the cover of Scientific American. I asserted that it was. Because it was, and it also said “Eva Longoria” under the picture. She felt that Eva normally does not wear so much eye makeup, nor does she traffic in straightened hair. The bagger finally convinced her, and she mentioned that we could all change our looks so frequently if we had as much money as Eva. Damn the system. Some of us are just stuck being ugly.

The “financial consultant” is dead to me

Or he will be, if I ever see him again. He just called and tried to weasel himself a visit to stop by and take life insurance applications. I asked if he could give us a quote, and who the company would be, and he wouldn’t tell me. I said that I couldn’t make an appointment without knowing these things, and he asked why. I said “We aren’t sure we want to use your services at all.” Suddenly, he had quotes for me. “Was that so hard,” I asked?

When he asked to speak to my husband instead, the top of my head came off. My brain rocketed out of my skull, like the crust of Mount Vesuvius. I woke up on the kitchen floor, drooling, brains impastoed on the front of the stainless appliances. I clawed desperately for the phone to call 911, but he was still on the other end, trying to distract me by changing the subject to whether I enjoy nice weather. I heard a coffee drink order being screeched in the background. That can only mean that this fucker is one of those fuckers who works out of a Starbucks! Fucker.

I slammed down the phone and scooped up my brains as best I could. Then I went online and found the same policy he was trying to sell me for less. Was that so hard?