You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
Kid’s perception of fiscal reality.
I don’t think kids get it. Why should they? They’re kids. They wake up Christmas morning from the time they can sit up and see the wondrous delight that is ribbons and boxes and bows.
It comes from Santa claus. It’s magic. Little do they know that daddy didn’t pay the rent and mommy started drinking Cutty Sark and the power bill is over due.
Finances. It’s a grown up thing.
I remember my parents saying to me; “whaddaya think? Money grows on trees?”
Money Grows on Trees?
they said it so often, it became ingrained in my psyche.
Money grows on trees.
It became a brand in our house.
Like Built Ford tough. Or Tastes Great Less Filling.
I never really got the meaning of the words till I became a parent.
What do you think? Money grows on trees.
I always imagined a magic tree in the middle of an oasis in some African desert.
I imagnined nomadic camel jockeys crawling to this tree surrounded by candy caned lovileness and cool pools of refreshing 7-up.
And in the middle of it all, a wonderful tree sprouting 100 dollar bills like acorns on a mighty oak.
What do you think? Money grows on trees?
Well, i’m older now. The world has beat me down, ruined my credit, snatched the dollars out of my rear pocket.
Now it rings all too true.
I was reminded of this concept recently when my daughter texted me from college alerting me to the fact that her schedule for Christmas break was changing and that was going to require me to change her flights.
In her mind it’s a simple task.
“Dad. I’m now leaving San Diego on such and such a date and returning on such and such a date. Please make the necessary changes.”
And that’s it.
Have you ever tried to change a flight around the holidays?
It’s easier to perform a self circumcision in an army jeep on a bombed out highway in Lebanon.
I changed flights for her once before.it’s complicated.
You have to hope that the flights aren’t sold out. On a day in the middle of who cares, it is tough.
Around Christmas? put a pistol in your mouth and spin the barrel.
You open yourself up to new fees and rates based on the late changes.
San Diego is in a galaxy far far away all ready.
I spent an arm and a leg to get her home for Thanksgiving.
Now I have to change the flights for Christmas?
Sheesh.
“Why girl?” I text back. “Why are you doing this to me?”
She will tell me that the exam schedules have changed.
Really?
The University of San Diego posted the wrong exam schedule?
Hmmmmm?
I am not looking forward to this one. It’s easier to buy a black market baby than changing flights at the holiday.
I wanted to get to Portland.
I had to book a flight at 6am that made two stops in both hell and high water just to get on an aircraft heading west. And that was the week after Thanksgiving.
The airlines are sky way robbers who want to maximize profits by charging for oxygen and extra bags.
You think they are going to just let me change flights because my daughter thought her exam schedule was this, but it is really that?
My daughter is a scholastic rock star. Sometimes, God Bless her, I think her brain is filled with sunshine and coconut juice.
“Hey dad, I need to change my flights….”
Just the words in a short communique make my heart race.
It’s an unnecessary trip to the ATM where the money sprays out of the slot and disappears into a vortex cloud of waste.
I now understand.
Money doesn’t grow on trees.
I toil and suffer and labor for what I earn.
Kids don’t get it.
Every day is Christmas where magic surrounds a tree with stuff.
While it is frustrating. While you do feel like saying, book your own damn flights.
That’s not what my parents said to me, so it’s not what I’m going to say to them.
One day, when they too get the call from my grand children about needing free magic money from the money tree in the Oasis in the desert, I will laugh my old man ass off.
Then they too will know that money doesn’t grow on trees.
life’s crazy™