Mama's Got a Brand New Job

Gah!

The informal poll I conducted yesterday to determine if I am the only person who can see my own snazzy header font has confirmed my very worst suspicions:

I see dead people imaginary fonts.

But, yes – it appears that you are viewing a craptastic version of my lovely header, so, until I find that couture gown I was talking about, I will be modeling a series of off-the-rack numbers at the top of this page.

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I’ve never been a particularly good financial manager. In fact, merely reading the words I just typed makes my eyes glaze over.

I used to have something I fondly referred to as my “bill bowl.” Into the bill bowl I would toss, unopened, any incoming mail that didn’t have my name and address handwritten on the envelope. When I began to get the feeling, a sixth sense if you will, that a bill was about to come due, I would randomly pluck one from the bowl and pay it.

It was a fine system. In the six or so years during which this method was employed, only one – count it – one bill went to collections.

Then I married the P-dog. The bill bowl was confiscated and I was relieved of the bill paying task forevermore.

Until last week.

It seems that my blogging obsession is starting to cut into the P-Dog’s online bill paying time (I’m told that bills are paid online these days?). Usually, he waits patiently for me to finish reading all of the blogs in cyberspace before he gently suggests that perhaps I should go ahead and take a Tylenol PM and call it a night? To which I calmly reply, as I’ve mentioned before, that he can use the laptop after I’m dead.

Anyway.

The other night, just as I was really getting into this post, the P-Dog calmly deposited a handful of envelopes into my lap.

“What’s this?” I brightly inquired.

“Bills,” said the P-Dog.

“Yo-kay. I’ll be done with the laptop in, oooooh, about fifteen minutes.”

A brief pause.

“You’re payin’ em, Rimster.” (Rimarama is only my nom de clef, guys.)

What followed was an agonizing online bill-pay lesson and marathon during which the phrases, “holy sh*t!”, “OH MY GOD, IS THAT OUR CREDIT CARD BALANCE?”, “There’s more?”, “What is this button for?” and “Ooops” could be heard reverberating through our humble abode.

The P-Dog was especially chafed by the fact that I took it upon myself, during this accounting lesson, to teach him a thing or two about efficiency in internet navigation.

So I have a new household chore I am none too pleased about. And despite my having explained to the P-dog that the assignment is likely to interfere with my ability to do the odd load of laundry every couple of months and to produce the top-notch Stouffer’s frozen cuisine he has lately become accustomed to, he is not yielding.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, those bills aren’t going to pay themselves.