7/8/05
When my maternal grandmother was still alive, she had a little sign hanging in a dim corner of her bedroom – you know the kind – one of those little wood pieces that had some pithy saying silk-screened onto it. You could only find them at gas station/souvenir stands of the kind that crop up near the borders between two mid-western states. Of course, the only thing these purchases would be a souvenir of was your late-night visit to this gas station, but I digress.
The sign – (about 6” x 4”) asked, “Why is there so much of the MONTH left at the end of the MONEY?”, accompanied by a simple cartoon of winged calendar pages flying off in desperation.
Now, my grandmother worked for forty years at a tool & die company, and, after she divorced my grandfather in 1970, lived with her sister. She’s not someone I recall as being a real spendthrift – no, she rather seemed to have a good handle on classic yankee thrift. That sign was a life-motto.
Shame the skill for money-management isn’t something genetic. Nor does my wife seem to be possessed of it. Instead, there’s a whole hunk of month left at the end of the money, and if you’re standing too close to the calendar in the kitchen when the month changes, and the old month grows allegorical bird-wings, you could end up with severe paper cuts as it rockets past you out into the void.
You can hear the eerie call of the Great Horned North-American Month-Bird echoing out in the night, crying “AM-ex! AM-ex!”
Clearly, one of two things has to happen:
1) Earn more money, or
2) Spend less of it.
We’ve gone with option (3), being ‘apply for a home equity loan.’
Loans are scary things, because there’s a part of you that thinks of it as free money (for this delusion, I blame Phil Rizzuto for drilling it into my head as a child), whereas, at best, it’s really just a restructuring of your debts.
And if you’re still paying off your mortgage, the very concept of home equity is pretty spooky. Who in their right mind borrows money against something they don’t even own?
I never said I was in my right mind. I said I was broke.
What’s really going on is the sudden parallel attack of all our utility possessions. Everything we own that’s designed to cook, drain, flush, cool or transport has just gone bang-klunk in the last few weeks. It’s as if all of our appliances and cars have signed a murder/suicide pact.
It started with the upstairs fan. The blare of the smoke-alarm, a cloud of blue smoke, and it was time for a new fan. Fine, window fans are affordable things – although they’re trying to make them less affordable. The first fan we found came equipped with dual-blades, a digital readout and a remote control (!), and retailed for $60. We ended up with the classic $14 from Sears.
Then, the basement toilet didn’t flush one morning. I plunged away, and succeeded only in sending the water down the line, into the tub. Turns out the sump pump wasn’t working, and the sump pump wasn’t working because the circuit breaker on it’s outlet had broken. It wasn’t a problem, because it could temporarily plug the pump into another outlet, but it turns out the water softener on the same circuit got brain-fried, and needs to be replaced. That will be $400-$500, when we do replace it. For now, our water remains diamond-like in it’s hardness.
Sometime last summer, the digital control on our oven had given out, so I bought a replacement control from Sears and wired it in. Cost at the time: $200. We’re planning on remodeling the kitchen, so it seemed like a good idea to keep the old oven going until that point, a couple of years from now.
Of course, two weeks ago, the replacement panel gave out. We’re now ovenless, unsure how to proceed. You make the call: $200 for another replacement panel (with a 90-day guarantee), or $850+ for a new oven that will limit our options for when we do remodel the kitchen?
Then the upstairs air-conditioner gave out. Again: fine, I was glad to see it go, and we had a free replacement from my mom. The problem was one of physics… “physics” here defined as the intersection of the underlying principles that govern our universe. The old AC was probably manufactured sometime in the late 1960’s – it had given out from sheer age.
It was a startlingly massive object, composed of flaking rust and mildew and about the size of a filing cabinet. It also weighed as much as a filing cabinet, - one wrought from solid iron, and filled with the U.S. Gold Reserves. So that’s the mass, part one of “physics.”
Part two is ‘time,’ as in the perfect timing that the AC had, by giving out when there was no-one around to help me move it. I ended up letting it free-fall down the stairs, riding on a couple of old comforters, using part three of physics, gravity. And you all know the bit about the immovable object & the irresistible force? Air-conditioner, meet cast iron radiator. No-one was hurt, but it was quite clangy.
And the cars… did I mention the cars? My wife’s Jeep and my Subaru both flashed ‘Check Engine” within two days of each other. The Jeep (which we still owe $2,000 on) repairs came to $1,300. My car has had the same problem for two years, and despite throwing several thousand at it, my dealer has been unable to repair it. Now, it’s chronic, and I’m taking it to a different garage. No idea what this will cost, and frustrated from experience that it will cost a lot, and secure nothing in return.
Also, the ceiling partly collapsed in our spare room, and while it’s not an expensive repair, I find, oddly, that I’ve lost the ability to laugh about it.
You may go ahead and laugh, though – it’s not your house.
- Dave
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Link: What, debt and the terrors of home-ownership aren't rock & roll enough for you? Then, here: the Song of the Week. Me on drums, cover band with some friends. No quality control, much fun. Courtesy of Karl.