Cells

During the summers my income is sparse. I have a little job that pays one-half of one month's bills. I save all year in two credit unions to manage the rest of the summer expenses. Being ordered to pay Bill $5000 is off-the-charts ridiculous in some ways. In fact, it has become comical in my mind. I have joked this summer about different ways to come up this seemingly enormous amount of money. So, here they are:

1. Try to get two $20 bills to reproduce. Turn on some Barry White, light some candles, put some champagne on ice

2. Plant a money tree. (Don't let the dogs eat the foliage.)

3. Sell a kidney on Craigslist. "For sale! One 60-year-old kidney. Gently used. No alcohol since last Tuesday. 15% discount if you harvest it yourself."

4. Street walk. You never know which guys have fantasies about 60-year-old kindergarten teachers. And after we're done, I could teach them the alphabet or how to tie their shoes.

5. Have multiple yard sales. Sell every single thing that isn't nailed down. You'd be surprised what people will buy.

Notice how I have not included killing Dad. I'm not THAT desperate.


Bill has always known this about me and summers. When he would start bugging me about buying things during the summer, I would say, "I'm a teacher. It's summer." Duh.

Both last summer and this summer, my cell phone bills went very high. July, August, and September last year brought bills in excess of $400. I finally made an assertive call to the cell phone company last fall and they ended up crediting me over $800 for a mistake they'd made. But this summer my July bill was $521 and my August bill was $397. This bill is usually about $200. A quick call to the cell phone carrier revealed that, of the 1500 minutes a month we have on our family plan, Bill had used 1482. The good news was that I could deduct that amount from the checks I had to send him because the county doesn't have any paychecks to deduct from during July and August. In August Bill had used 1164 minutes. Bill let me know he thought I should add more minutes to the plan. He said it would cost about $5 a month. Nope. Not so. The September month started last Sunday. By Thursday Bill had used almost 480 minutes. Talking to the cell phone company on one phone and my attorney on the other, we had to cut Bill off. Sorry, but if you can't play nice in the sandbox, you can't play at all. Get your own sandbox and you can throw all the sand you want, Bill.