August Vacation 2002
Our August vacation ends tomorrow. One week in August at my in-laws has become an annual tradition, eagerly anticipated by the whole family. My wife looks forward to playing tennis with her father, the children look forward to catching up with their cousins, and I look forward to seven days of anonymity and sloth.
August seems tailor-made for sloth. The few feeble blades of ambition that manage to sprout soon wither in the ungodly heat and humidity. This year we were surprised by two or three cooler days in the middle of the week, but I refused to budge from my master plan, which was to do nothing, or as nearly nothing as I was able to manage. The mercury, which retreated on Wednesday, was advancing again today. According to the Philadelphia meteorologists' guild, it will reclaim the rest of its lost territory tomorrow.
Sleeping, which I came here to do, has been going tolerably well. I confess that I am not the sleeper that I once was. When I was young and vigorous, with few cares and plenty of time to overcome the consequences of my mistakes, sleep was effortless, as it ought to be. Now that I am older, I worry more and rest less.
I have acquired the bad habit of using the last few moments of the day for mulling over insoluble problems --- personal, ecclesiastical, even geopolitical. Any good doctor will tell you this is a bad strategy if you want a good night's sleep. Sometimes I remember this when I am there under the covers, lights out. I try to heed the advice, but the next thing I know I am thinking about all the people in this country who lack ready access to a good doctor.
I have shared my bedroom this week with my beautiful wife who sleeps well and with an impressive stack of twenty dollar bills. The bills sit between the north wall and the end of the dresser on a small pedestal made out of a few volumes of Reader's Digest Condensed Books. The stack of bills measures perhaps four inches in height, and if counted might total $10,000 or so. I haven't bothered to count. There is no point; they are poor counterfeits, oversized, printed on cardstock, with a coupon on the back which is ten years out of date.
The phony bills are the remnants of a practical joke never pulled off. A few years back my mother-in-law asked me what I wanted for Christmas and I allegedly told her, "A pound of twenty dollar bills." She subsequently found these fakes at one of her places of employment but never got around to wrapping them. I will take them home and hoard them away until I can find a fitting use -- some future prank as yet unimagined.
While I have refused to count the counterfeit, my wife has been out spending the real stuff. The local department store has had some truly extraordinary sales, up to 80% off the original price. My daughters found several nice items for their back-to-school wardrobes. My fifteen-year-old even found a top that she likes for a mere 75 cents!
This bargain will undoubtedly become the stuff of family legend. I do hope that it does not ruin the girl, as a similar event nearly did me. When I was in college, I found a nice pair of black dress shoes with a two inch heel for only $5 at Sears. They appealed to both my vanity and my frugality, and they lasted for half a decade. But for several years afterward I was convinced that this was the right price to pay for a good pair of shoes and fiercely resented the extortionists who demanded more.
This week, however, it was I who felt slightly criminal, purchasing such fine goods at suspiciously low prices. A final tally of receipts revealed savings of nearly $600. This is a marvelous figure, equal to half of what we spend on clothes in a year. But then it is also a phantom figure. It is money we would never have spent in the first place. At the original price, all (or nearly all) merchandise would have been refused.
As I see it, the only appropriate way to account for this $600 is to enter it as a credit on the mental ledger I keep of phantom cash. Other credits include the cash value of the vegetables that grow in my garden, what I save by not washing my cars and the waiver of parking fees I receive at hospitals when I remember my clergy ID. On the debit side of the ledger are sums I never earned, such as the honorarium I didn't get for the wedding I turned down last spring.
Tonight, while I am waiting to fall asleep, I plan to check the arithmetic in the ledger and see where I stand. And while I'm at it, I guess I'll credit accounts receivable for the pound of twenties.
August seems tailor-made for sloth. The few feeble blades of ambition that manage to sprout soon wither in the ungodly heat and humidity. This year we were surprised by two or three cooler days in the middle of the week, but I refused to budge from my master plan, which was to do nothing, or as nearly nothing as I was able to manage. The mercury, which retreated on Wednesday, was advancing again today. According to the Philadelphia meteorologists' guild, it will reclaim the rest of its lost territory tomorrow.
Sleeping, which I came here to do, has been going tolerably well. I confess that I am not the sleeper that I once was. When I was young and vigorous, with few cares and plenty of time to overcome the consequences of my mistakes, sleep was effortless, as it ought to be. Now that I am older, I worry more and rest less.
I have acquired the bad habit of using the last few moments of the day for mulling over insoluble problems --- personal, ecclesiastical, even geopolitical. Any good doctor will tell you this is a bad strategy if you want a good night's sleep. Sometimes I remember this when I am there under the covers, lights out. I try to heed the advice, but the next thing I know I am thinking about all the people in this country who lack ready access to a good doctor.
I have shared my bedroom this week with my beautiful wife who sleeps well and with an impressive stack of twenty dollar bills. The bills sit between the north wall and the end of the dresser on a small pedestal made out of a few volumes of Reader's Digest Condensed Books. The stack of bills measures perhaps four inches in height, and if counted might total $10,000 or so. I haven't bothered to count. There is no point; they are poor counterfeits, oversized, printed on cardstock, with a coupon on the back which is ten years out of date.
The phony bills are the remnants of a practical joke never pulled off. A few years back my mother-in-law asked me what I wanted for Christmas and I allegedly told her, "A pound of twenty dollar bills." She subsequently found these fakes at one of her places of employment but never got around to wrapping them. I will take them home and hoard them away until I can find a fitting use -- some future prank as yet unimagined.
While I have refused to count the counterfeit, my wife has been out spending the real stuff. The local department store has had some truly extraordinary sales, up to 80% off the original price. My daughters found several nice items for their back-to-school wardrobes. My fifteen-year-old even found a top that she likes for a mere 75 cents!
This bargain will undoubtedly become the stuff of family legend. I do hope that it does not ruin the girl, as a similar event nearly did me. When I was in college, I found a nice pair of black dress shoes with a two inch heel for only $5 at Sears. They appealed to both my vanity and my frugality, and they lasted for half a decade. But for several years afterward I was convinced that this was the right price to pay for a good pair of shoes and fiercely resented the extortionists who demanded more.
This week, however, it was I who felt slightly criminal, purchasing such fine goods at suspiciously low prices. A final tally of receipts revealed savings of nearly $600. This is a marvelous figure, equal to half of what we spend on clothes in a year. But then it is also a phantom figure. It is money we would never have spent in the first place. At the original price, all (or nearly all) merchandise would have been refused.
As I see it, the only appropriate way to account for this $600 is to enter it as a credit on the mental ledger I keep of phantom cash. Other credits include the cash value of the vegetables that grow in my garden, what I save by not washing my cars and the waiver of parking fees I receive at hospitals when I remember my clergy ID. On the debit side of the ledger are sums I never earned, such as the honorarium I didn't get for the wedding I turned down last spring.
Tonight, while I am waiting to fall asleep, I plan to check the arithmetic in the ledger and see where I stand. And while I'm at it, I guess I'll credit accounts receivable for the pound of twenties.
posted by Jimbo | 3:21 PM
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