"What luck! It landed on a doily!" Image: QuickSprout
We’re poor, not po’ (as in Po-Boy, yum). Okay, I’m probably, most likely, definitely exaggerating.
I mean, yes, we’re a family of four living on 1.05 incomes (that 0.05—all me, baby) and we can’t afford swimming lessons or Mandarin Chinese tutors or supernannies or jewel-encrusted diaper bags, but my daughters certainly aren’t growing up like my mother, the youngest of twelve children living on Homestead Act land and subsisting off deer and squirrel whenever necessary, and we definitely don’t need to use chicken intestines for home entertainment, and I probably could have afforded to buy or make an exotic grasshopper mouse for my wife on Mother’s Day, but well, money is tight. At the end of the month, there’s none left, and that’s only if we keep to a strict budget.
Wait, we’re Americans that spend all of their income on debt and consumables and can’t afford to save. I actually think that means we’re not poor—we’re normal. My bad.
Now my week is ruined, stupid glass half full. I had big plans to go grocery shopping in Texas with postage stamps and wallow in a muddy puddle of my own self-misery. Now I’ll have to find a real muddy puddle in Texas (don’t think that will be hard) and wallow in that. The metaphorical puddle would have been a lot less messy. 
Actually, I like not having money. All that creative energy I would typically waste devising new and exciting ways to burn a hole in my pocket has been transformed into devising new and exciting ways to mend holes in my pocket. And if there’s one thing I enjoy, it’s sewing.
You think I’m kidding, but I sew like the wind and I’m a crafty son of a gun (my father was a cop—no pun or cliché intended). Maybe not as crafty as Martha Stewart or those fabulous people who emulate her, and definitely not as creative as some amazing people out there, but I’m no slouch. As a matter of fact, I just now have decided that Mondays shall hereby be dedicated to chronicling my creative pursuits.
But not this Monday. I’ve written too much already. Yaddayadda.
