Down at Frugal Rock

I'm very bad with money. Very bad.

I think this has to do with my overall hatred of math. Not just math, but numbers. They make my head hurt. Every time I have to do any sort of calculation, especially if it's in my head, I get all flustered and mixed-up and confused. Like how George Bush must feel whenever he's asked a question by someone other than a pre-briefed male prostitute posing as a reporter.

This is not a terribly big deal working at a video store, when I have a handy little cash register to tell me how much money to return to someone. And most people use credit cards, which requires even less applied arithmatic on my part.

But when you're dealing with your own finances, mathophobia can become a real problem. What happens is, I get some money. Usually it's a paycheck, but I'm not above dropping the occasional organ or two on the black market. You know, if I'm not using it. No use letting it sit there.

And once I have the money, I put it in my checking account. And then I keep a figure in my head. Say, $100. So, I walk around thinking I have $100, and taking money out of the bank or out of my checking account at will. And I'll maybe buy $40 worth of DVD's, fill my car up with gas, and so on.

The problem is, this sort of mental tallying doesn't account for the literally 500,000 expenses that come up in day to day life that aren't the result of direct financial transactions on my part. Like occasional $20 bank fees. Or automatic bill payment. Or this bizarre concept my landlord keeps telling me about called rent.

So I wind up spending that whole initial $100 and then having expenses that need to be paid before I'll get another check (or grow another vital organ). So I have to sell off precious personal belongings (non-biological this time) or go beg my parents for extra funds. When I was 18, this was not so big a deal...just the way an adolescent learns to deal with finances. But now that I'm 26, it's far beyond pathetic. It's downright pathological.

So it's clear I either need a new, high-paying, fast-paced career or I need to just stop spending any money altogether that isn't directly connected to survival. Neither's an appealing option. I'd try to put some ads up on the blog here, but companies would probably pay me more to wear a shirt with their logo on it than plaster some obnoxious pop-up on here. If I sat in Century City Mall for an hour, more people would probably see me than visit Inertia in three months.

Sigh.

In my head, this was a delightfully witty post goofing on one of life's little hurdles we all deal with. But now that I read over it, it's pretty much entirely depressing. I'll have to go scan the 'Net now for something outrageously hilarious just to counter-balance this thing. Oh well, I'm sure someone's done something goofy today.

Oh, wait, I've already got it!

You hear about Republican Senator Lindsey Graham? This is great. He told a gathering of people celebrating Lincoln Day in Tennessee the following:

"We don't do Lincoln Day Dinners in South Carolina. It's nothing personal, but it takes a while to get over things."

Wait a minute...they don't celebrate Abraham Lincoln in South Carolina because they haven't gotten over things? What things?

Does he mean the Civil War here, people? Has Lindsey Graham, a United States Senator, a respected public official, really come out as against his home state remaining a part of America? Does the South still really want to secede? Can the rest of us be that lucky?

Can you imagine if all the Red States broke off and formed their own nation? It might look a little something like this:



Maybe it's just that whole Emancipation Proclaimation thing that's bugging Lindsey. Sure is a lot harder for a good ol' boy like him to get elected in SC now that we actually count every adult's vote and all.

Honestly, I'd love to hear him make a public apology in which he has to explain that comment. Someone needs to ask him, point blank, what it is about Abraham Lincoln that bothers him so. Who knows? Maybe he just really hates top hats. Or maybe he feels that there have been a disproportional number of tall presidents, and Honest Abe represents the vile double-standard for who can hold the nation's highest office.

He does know that Abe didn't actually start the Log Cabin Republicans, right?

You know what? Goofing on a Republican Senator has made me feel better already. I think I'll go make some frivolous purchases...Don't worry, I've got $100 in the bank!