Deals You Make in Your Head

Dean Dad has a brilliant post--or at least I'm assuming it's brilliant, because it's about money and budgeting and I think we're all clear on how little that shit makes sense to me. So, this post seems clear and smart, therefore I want to call it brilliant, but I feel I must warn y'all to consider the fact that it's me who's telling you that something about money is brilliant and to prepare yourself that it might, in fact, be very stupid and I am just not smart enough to know. Anyway... Dean Dad has this brilliant post about how professors often get upset with him because they feel, when he has to communicate unpleasant budgetary realities to them, like he's violating some unspoken but understood agreement between the university and the faculty. Now, obviously, I could give two shits about the problems of faculty, except for how it affects the dear Professor. But reading Dean Dad's post got me thinking about how often I get pissed at the dog for not behaving or, worse yet, pissed at the Butcher for not living up to his end of our bargain, when, in fact, we have no bargain. The other day the Butcher was bitching at me about the mail on the floor. I said, "I don't bring the mail in." And he said, "Yeah, I do and then you go through it and toss the junk in the trash and do something with the rest." Now, folks, there are literally four enormous piles of mail around our living room and one smallish one on the floor. Where he got the idea in his head that I was taking care of the mail, I just don't know. So, I said that very thing, "Where did you get the idea in your head that I was taking care of the mail?" And he thought about it a second and said, "Well, that was the arrangement I made with you in my head." I had nothing to say to him in return, except to laugh, but I wish I'd had Dean Dad's line: "I'm unimpressed; I can't be accountable for deals that never really existed."