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Can’t Afford a New Lover - Paige Scott

There must be fifty ways to lose your lover
Fifty ways to lose your lover

Just slip out the back, Jack
Make a new plan, Stan
You don’t need to be coy, Roy
Just get yourself free
Hop on the bus, Gus
You don’t need to discuss much
Just drop off the key, Lee
And get yourself free

There must be fifty ways to lose your lover
Fifty ways to lose your lover

(adapted from a Paul Simon song)

I sat down recently after a long, hard day to check my e-mail and this is what I found in my inbox:

Dear Mrs. Scott,

I am sending home Nicholas’s work from today.  Please call me when you have a minute so that I can explain (actually, so that you can explain this to me.)  No hurry – I am sure there is a logical explanation.  I didn’t know how to handle it when he read it in front of the other first graders.

Sincerely,

Miss W.   J

I scrambled to get to his backpack to see what in the world she was talking about.  This is what I found:

ALL ABOUT MOM  by Nicholas Scott

WHAT IS YOUR MOTHER’S NAME:    Paige Scott

HOW TALL IS YOUR MOTHER:  20 feet

HOW MUCH DOES YOUR MOTHER WEIGH:  100 pounds     (God bless him!)

WHAT IS YOUR MOM’S FAVORITE COLOR:  pink

WHAT IS YOUR MOM’S FAVORITE THING TO DO:  read, look at her compooter 

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO WITH YOUR MOM?  read a book with her or play

NAME SOMETHING SPECIAL ABOUT YOUR MOM:  she gives good hugs

WRITE A SHORT STORY ABOUT SOMETHING YOU WOULD LIKE TO DO FOR YOUR MOM:     I would like to get my mom a new lover.  She used to have 3 and now she only has 2.  She says we cannot afford anything right now, so I will save up my awowance muney and buy her a new lover.

Oh, God!  No!  Did he really stand up and read this to his whole first grade class and the teacher, too?   I guess I have some explaining to do!  

You see, I have these pillows that I have had on my bed for a very long time. They started out being decorative pillows until I realized they fit perfectly in the nook of my back and between my knees while sleeping on my side.  (For those of you who have experienced pregnancy, you will understand why this might be important.)  These pillows have been my “security blankets” for years now. 

My husband’s mom used to affectionately call her little teddy bears and dolls her “little lovers.”  I have no idea why and it was never meant as we have come to know the term “lover.”  It was cute and sweet and my dear husband knew how important my little pillows were to me, so they also became known as my “lovers.”

When Nicholas was a baby, we were on a family vacation in New England (yes, we used to travel quite a bit and go on some very nice vacations!)  Anyhow, my lovers were the perfect size to put underneath his bottle to prop it up while we were strolling around New England.  Lo and behold, we returned home from the trip with only two lovers, not three!  I cried!

Over the years, it has become a funny story about mommy’s lovers.  Guess I never thought about telling the kids to not share this story outside of the family, or in front of the whole class and the teacher, too!

More importantly, Nicholas has picked up on the fact that we cannot afford to do what we used to do and is announcing this as well to his whole class!  I have said many times over the past year “Oh, we can’t afford that!”  The first time my kids heard this, their mouths dropped open with utter amazement.  These were not words they had heard before in their little lives.  How do you explain money to little kids who knew that the little plastic card in Mommy’s purse could buy them anything they wanted, any time they wanted it?

Do we live in a bubble?  Yes (at least we used to!) 

Are we suffering?  Not too terribly bad…………… but I really do miss just throwing around my money whenever and wherever I pleased without having to actually think about it!  Now we have this tidy little thing called a budget. 

Is the budget working?  Sort of.  Budgeting is very hard when you have never had to balance your checkbook before.  Also, since we have been doing this little budget thing, I have gone over every month, so I guess the honest answer is NO, it is not working! 

Sometimes I seriously wonder if it is better to have had it all and then not so much………………… OR to never have had it in the first place.

To make sticking to a budget even worse, our expenses keep on going up while our receivables keep going down (see, I am learning accounting terms.)  Anyhow, since the budget has been out of balance lately, I opened the mailbox the other day and after sorting through the bills, the various Horchow, Crate & Barrel, Pottery Barn and Ballard Design catalogs (yes, they USED to get a lot of my money so now they are just wasting their time sending these to me) and more bills, I saw an envelope with that little peek-thru window that said:  PAY TO THE ORDER OF CHRIS SCOTT.  My hands started trembling!  Oh my gosh, it was addressed from his parent company!  What was this?  Oh Lord, could this be his quarterly dividend check that we receive from the bank stock?   Yes, I think this was it!  Such perfect timing since I had already gone over the monthly budget and it was only the 15^th of the month!  I opened it so fast that I almost ripped the check.  How much was this dividend check for?  A thousand?  A few hundred?  One hundred?

No, it was worth $1.56 (one dollar and 56/100)……………… yes, that is what his dividend check was for.  Why did the bank even bother spending the 44 cents to send it, really?  With the printing and the shipping cost, I think it cost THEM to pay out this dividend check.   Boy oh boy!  One dollar and 56 cents!  I think I will go buy a coke.  Or perhaps I could hop on the bus Gus …………….. I think that might be what the Houston Metro bus costs these days (one way, of course!)

And to top it all off, Nicholas came downstairs this morning and said, “Mom, is the tooth fairy broke, too?  I woke up and there was no money under my pillow and she even left my tooth.”

OH, SH*T! 

My 2 lovers