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The holidays are over. Here I am back at work. I am back at my normal place
by the
water cooler. You will recognize me as the guy with the weird necktie. I
received it from
my mother in law who probably bought it at a garage sale last summer from a
guy who
got it from his mother in law last Christmas. I would have loved to have
come back in
here and given my two week notice. To tell them what a lousy place this is
to work and
how miserly the Christmas bonus was. I thought I would have been able to
use that
money to do some last minute shopping for the dearest in my life and buy a
turkey for the
festive dinner. She had to settle for “OLE de toilette” and we feasted on
the ugliest
chicken in the coup. Just to add insult to injury. I am packing the last of
that carcass
between two pieces of bread along with some other things that are an hour
away from
turning some ghastly of shade of green.
I would love to go out and dine on a good tasty cheeseburger, but my credit
cards are all
maxed and I hold in my pocket two notices from the bank that tells me I am
overdrawn at
their establishment.
Every year we say we are not going to spend ourselves into oblivion. We say
we are
going to buy a little every month and when Christmas comes around again, we
will be so
far ahead of the game all we will need to do is set out the candles and the
center piece.
Alas, maybe this year we will be able to do that, but first I must pay for
the one that just
passed. If my calculations are correct and if the boss gives me that well
deserved raise, I
should be able to pay this one off by October 2005. I could do it faster if
I wasn’t paying
off last year and the year before and the year....
Something tells me that will also be the approximate date that my mother in
law will
hopefully be out of the picture. I was expecting her to show up with one
suitcase, but she showed up with a U-Haul. Her contribution to Christmas dinner was to
invite her out of
work son to come by for a week. That reminds me... tonight I am taking
control of that
TV clicker if it kills me. I had no idea there was wrestling on that many
times a week.
If I had the money, I would send those two to a motel.... come to think of
it, if I had the
money I’d go to a motel myself.
I had better take that tree out of the living room tonight before it drops
those last three
needles onto the floor. If they do I’ll have to pick them up by hand. The
last time I used
the vacuum it coughed and died, but left an aroma of pine in the air.
There are no more college football games and only a couple of pro games
until the dismal
days of winter set in. I apologize for flipping through the
Valdosta-Prairie View game
now. I’ll have to settle for the rerun of the 1987 Auburn- Georgia game on
ESPN
Classics.
All in all it hasn’t been that bad of a year. The guy who sold me that
pickup truck swears
that he new nothing about the transmission. He says it always worked for
him and he has no idea how eighty seven thousand miles disappeared from the
speedometer.
The HMO says that they would have covered my wife’s operation had I been on
the job
another three months. With less than five years on the job, they had no
choice but to
consider it a preexisting condition.
The city engineers say that sink hole that suddenly appeared under the house
was a
million to one shot. They say it was the prolonged drought of last year
that created the
conditions for it to happen. Since all of the house did not fall into the
hole, it will be up
to me to pay to have what is left torn down and hauled away. The insurance
company was very apologetic. After cooling down and finally seeing the air
turn back to normal from that eerie shade of blue I did find on page twenty
two near the bottom the paragraph about a house disappearing or partially
disappearing is not covered by the homeowners policy.
Alas, here I am stuck in a one bedroom apartment with mother in law and
looking
forward to a new and exciting new year. What surprises will be in store for
us there.
Hope your new year is happy and without complications.
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