My new strategy for college saving is drinking lots of Diet Dr. Pepper. They are running some give-away that gets you $1000-a-day to use for tuition. This fits well with my general inability to save money... and my propensity to drink Diet Dr. Pepper all day. I think this is sage on several levels. One... I can continue to spend money now rather than save it for the kids for later. Two... in the unlikely event that I DON'T win... I will have shortened my life considerably through the overdose of all sorts of baaaaadddd chemicals, and therefore my life insurance will kick in to pay for higher education. "Doctor... we tried to draw blood but all we got was this fizzy liquid!" Perfectly logical reasoning.
On an unrelated yet related note... my children are too damn popular. They have been invited to no less than six birthday parties this week alone. My budget for "birthday presents for strangers" is also eating into college savings, not to mention my budget for essential things like food, heat and movies. I've told them to be less friendly. But they don't listen. My 12yo lectured me on niceness yesterday. She said... "Daddy... people always say I'm too nice... because I'm very empathetic. And there are worse things than being nice." I told her that she collected needy friends like stray cats.
Anyway... so the boy gets off the bus at 3:55 yesterday and tells me he has been invited to ANOTHER birthday party. I rolled my eyes and asked when it was... "Today." "TODAY! When today!" "At 4:10". Now, my ability to deal with chaos is pretty high... but since the other half was off at a school meeting, and I was busy cooking the dinner in preparation for dance/clarinet/musical practice/other meetings later on that night... this came as a little bit of a shock.
Boy: Mommy knows about this.
Me: Well... I didn't get the memo. Who's party is this?
Boy: (Name I've never heard)
Me: Who the hell is that?
Boy: That's XXXX's brother.
Me: Wait... you got invited to his BROTHER's party?
Boy: His brother likes me.
Me: I'm sure he does. That's not really the point.
At that moment the cavalry arrived in the form of the other half.
Her: Crap... I forgot. Ok.. plan B. We are taking the gift card I bought for Saturday's party and put it in the card I bought for Sunday's party... there problem solved.
I made the executive decision not to point out that this was a small symptom of an entirely larger problem. But the day was already stress filled enough.
And soon I was off to delivery the boy and his borrowed present to a party for his best friend's brother grumbling to myself about stray cats and college.
Water Heater
2 years ago