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About a week ago I had a "when it rains, it pours" moment with my finances. It went something like this: tax bill from the District of Columbia that feels like someone is shoving chopsticks into my eardrums every time I think about it, new brakes, removing a boot off of my car, and purchasing 14 bottles of shiraz to numb the pain.
I compared the amount available on my credit card, the amount available in my checking account, the amount available in my savings account and after the room stopped spinning and I was revived with smelling salts; I made a plan to tackle it all head on. But not before I wrote Pulitzer Prize angry worthy words on just how awful and expensive and downright painful it is to be an adult. The amount of responsibility that comes after the age of 18 when you're suddenly thrust into keeping track of your own finances with nary a person available to swoop in and dump a few grand in your lap. Nope, it's all on you and because it is on you, you must deal with it as it comes. And if instead of a deluge of hundred dollar bills you are met with a deluge of bills that must be paid; well then you must pay them.
It hurts. God it hurts. With each swipe of a pen signing my name on a check it felt like someone was whacking my lower extremities with a golf club. But it HAS to be done. What feels like rudimentary financial responsibility - taking ownership of your bills and your money because frankly no one else is accountable to the amount you do or do not have in your bank account - is what drives the economy. Now if you need help, by all means, request the help for all of us find ourselves in that shitty - pardon my French - predicament where we are stuck between a rock and a hard place financially and so we request that leg up. But still there's that underlying theme of RESPONSIBILITY. The crappy part of being an 'adult' - or at least I play one really well on The Internet - is that we have to do what is expected of us: We have to go to work, we have to pay our bills, we have be adult enough to toughen up and realize what is directly in front of us even if we don't want to look at it. We all do this work/life thing for different reasons and we all know when we're on the precipice standing down and looking at our demise when it comes to finances. It happens.
Until all of this 'when it rains it pours' stuff happened there was no way for me to adequately express any emotion besides ambivalence towards our current financial problem. Though 'problem' is putting it mildly, regardless I'm thinking that my feelings of 'eh, let's talk about Sarah Palin more!' wasn't so much because I I didn't care but because of a bit of an age factor. Meaning my 401(K) is safe then again, I'm not looking to retire anytime in the near future. I don't have a mortgage and I'm not looking to purchase property until I find the city I'd like to settle down in. Therefore a shrug of the shoulders sufficed. That is until my bank account was sucked up with a massive straw and I was told to deal with it. It's my fault that I decided to buy sweater dresses instead of paying my parking tickets and it's my fault that I didn't completely my taxes properly. Which means that since it is MY fault, I am the one to blame. So why would anyone else be held responsible along with me? While I enjoy the notion of misery loves company I don't enjoy having to pay for anothers mistakes - as a tax payer - and no one else should pay for mine.
The above has left me both baffled and pissed off. Why should there be a double standard? Why is it that when average middle-class people and families need help they hem and haw and yet when a corporation - who I'm betting KNEW of their respective plights for months - says 'oops! my bad!' they jump up all ready and willing to bailout every Tom, Dick and Harry with a golden parachute to boot? I don't get it and it's had
