Sunday, August 14, 2005

A Fairy Tale for Me

They say you can tell a lot about folks by the stories they tell. I don't have much use for the old "girl pines for distant boy and her love makes him stop being an asshole" stories or the "boy pines for unconscious girl and his kiss awakens her" stories. But there is one fairytale I really wish upon a star would come true for me. Here's that story: Once upon a time there was a brilliant and cute girl who lived in a place between the interstate and the train tracks. She lived there because it was close to work and she could surround herself with animals and brothers, many of which seemed to spend most of the day farting noxious farts. It's unclear why she put up with that. Even though our hero was cute and brilliant, with fun curly hair, she had a deep dark secret. Here's what it was. When it came to personal finance, her strategy was to open the bills, pay what they ordered her to pay, and, when her bank account was empty, ask her brother for enough money to cover the rest. There are many ways that this arrangement was not smart, but for the most part, it made her happy so whenever someone asked her why her brother was not paying more than just what she could not afford to pay, she got very angry and stomped on their left foot. Most people stopped asking. But one day (and here's where it become untrue) a brilliantly funny, hairy, liberal accountant/lawyer with a high tolerance for flatulent pets arrived at her door. "Why," he asked her, "are you making more money than your parents made the whole time you were growing up and still are living basically hand to mouth?" She glared at him and stomped on his foot. He didn't even flinch. "Why don't you do something about it?" She glared at him and stomped on his other foot. He smiled at her, somewhat amused. "Fine," she said, tears streaming down her face, "the truth is that I'm not brilliant when it comes to money and I feel like I'm making all of my decisions based solely out of terror and not out of wise money management strategies. You see, sir, as smart as I am, I am not smart enough to know what right courses of action are available to me. I have no math skills." "Lucky for you," he smiled, or at least he appeared to smile through his lush moustache, "I am an accountant and an attorney with a vast personal fortune. I will buy you a house, consolidate your credit card debt into one easy and manageable payment, and help you budget your money so that you have enough for property taxes, a cleaning service, and a little money so that you can go out with your friends." "Money to go out with my friends?!" She cried. "It's been years since I regularly had money to go out with my friends. Sir, you are too kind." "Thank you, ma'am," He winked at her and came in, sat down at her computer, opened up Excel and, within an afternoon, had made sense of her financial mess, while she sat on the couch, listened to rap music, and admired his steel-toed boots. When he was done, he got up and headed towards the door. "I'll be back next week to take you house hunting. I'm sure we can find you a nice house with some character in a funky neighborhood no problem." "And after that?" she asked, "Will I ever see you again?" "Well," he said, "I spend a great deal of time on the road with my biker gang, but I'd be more than happy to stop by for smooches and to take you out to dinner ever couple of weeks." "That sounds terrific," she said. And it was.

6 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

That was an excellent fairy tale. I think I teared up toward the end. Can you do one for me now?

Is this post related to the Hustler post??

W

8/14/2005 03:31:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I think that is lovely. Here is mine (as per our conversation Saurday):

Once there was a woman who lived in a yellow house surrounded by purple, red, and white flowers. Suddenly, she was cursed with illness, bed rest for the illness, medicine for the illness that made her sicker, an injured foot, bed rest for the foot, more stupid medicine that was probably the real cause of that whole sleeping beauty thing, and having to do everything the hard way.

One day, through her research skills and inability to leave well enough alone, she found the evil demon called bad luck (aka that's the way it goes, life isn't perfect, everything can't be easy etc. ad naseum) and wheedled it into leaving her alone for right now because she'd had enough.

Then she put her foot up the evil demon's ass and gave it a beating to beat all beatings. Just for good measure.

She got home to the yellow house in time to make some sun tea and watch some craptastic movies with the man who lived in the yellow house with her.

Sadly, I could not find a way to work in noxious farts.

I'll tell you about the scary movie when I've seen it - SuperGenius

8/14/2005 03:56:00 PM  
Blogger Aunt B said...

Related to the Hustler post? In what way?

I didn't blow my money at the Hustler place, if that's what you're suggesting. I went merely out of curiosity. I swear!

8/14/2005 04:13:00 PM  
Blogger harvestbird said...

This story brought a tear to my eye. I think therein lies a meme: write your own fairy tale. I'll do that this very evening!

8/14/2005 06:10:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I thought perhaps you met your fairy tale biker/accountant/attorney during one of your many visits to Hustler this weekend. I hadn't thought of the 'spent all your money' angle.

W

8/14/2005 07:04:00 PM  
Blogger Aunt B said...

Ah, that makes sense.

No, I don't think there were any single guys in the Hustler store.

And, honestly, as some folks can attest, I'm a damn fool around men, so the real version of this story would probably involve me acting like such a fool that he ran for his life.

8/14/2005 07:12:00 PM  

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