Here’s one facet of my personality that I haven’t gabbed about lately and that’s my financial responsibility, or quite honestly, lack there of. Earl and I have an unspoken understanding regarding our financial affairs in our little household. All of *our* money goes into one checking account and *I* spend it. It’s always been that way. I don’t know why. But it works for me.
I like to buy little things. A clock for the collection here. A piece of software there. Here an Apple, there an Apple, everywhere an Apple Apple. When Earl spends money, he goes for gold. Nothing for months, and then wham, they’re delivering a whole new dining room set complete with a naked waiter. He knows how to spend with the best of them. I strive to be the same way, but I’m too caught up in buying these little things instead. A Martha Stewart water pitcher, complete with prison stripes. A Carol Burnett mop, complete with a cartoon face. A Rip Taylor bag of confetti, complete with wig.
It’s not that I find comfort in these little doo-dads or anything. One time we were at Eaton’s in Toronto. They were going out of business, preparing for their take over from Sears. Everything in the store was marked down with deep, deep discounts (forget “Deep Throat”, show me “Deep Discounts” if you want to get me hot and bothered.) Most of it had been picked over, pawed and perused, but I didn’t care, there was something in that six floors of goodness that was just screaming out my name. And then I saw it. A cookie jar. A black and white cat cookie jar with a fish on the cat’s back. The fish looks mildly amused, the cat, while trying to look happy looks slightly jarring. He has this wild look in his eyes and mildly alarming grin on his face. But for some reason he looked lonely, so I snatched him up and nearly ran to the register to pay $16.00 for him, marked down from $30.00. Since we were in Toronto, we were using Canadian money, which by the way, is much more fun as I’m always a sucker for colorful paper and women with tiaras. I threw a blue bill, a green bill, a red bill and a few coins in the direction of the cashier hoping for the best. Apparently I got it right because she smiled and said thank you and wrapped up my cookie jar.
Mind you, I’ve never filled a cookie jar in my life. I believe anything baked should be consumed immediately, so nothing is going to be stored in a cookie jar. But nevertheless, this mildly jarring cat cookie jar is sitting on our kitchen counter, having survived the trip from the old house to the new house, fish on the back intact. Sometimes I put tea bags in him. The kind of tea nobody drinks, like dandelion tea or something.
Had Earl been making the purchase, I’m sure that Eaton’s would still be called “Earl’s” to this day.
