Making allowances

The experts say that giving your children an allowance helps instill in them a sense of the value of money. It encourages them to establish spending priorities, set goals and save up for what they really want.

With this in mind, I dutifully offered my children a dollar a week when they were young and then waited for the miracle of fiscal responsibility to take root in their brains.

It would have been a more effective training tool if I'd actually paid them. What would happen is I'd forget to get cash prior to payday (Saturday) and then offer to take them shopping at Goodwill instead. At the store, the kids' purchases would eerily reflect their frustration with the paymaster. Nick would pick out a toy that transformed into a weapon of mass destruction, Sam would get something sad-eyed and fuzzy, and Alice would fall in love with a bridesmaid's dress which cost twenty times what I owed her.

Eventually, the kids got tired of shopping at thrift stores. Alice went to work at the bed and breakfast down the street and the boys got a paper route. Once my children got a taste of regular paychecks, allowance went by the wayside. Now it's interesting to see how their experiences with the world of money has shaped them.

Alice is frugal, works hard and budgets for expenses. I think this is a natural reaction to being raised by a spendthrift who prefers reading "best of craigslist" to actual work and who balances her checking account by intuition. However, a bad example is still an example, so this counts as good parenting.

My youngest son, Nick, is an opportunistic money manager. There are things he'd like to have but, if at all possible, he'd rather have someone else pay for them. And though he's willing to wait for what he wants, his patience has its limits.

"Mom, when's my birthday?"

"In 364 more days, Nick."

"Oh. When's Christmas?"

Sam doesn't care enough about money, in my opinion, which explains why I frequently find dollar bills scattered in his dresser drawers, balled up under his bed, or being used as bookmarks in his favorite novels. I have told him that this is not interest earning behavior but he only rolls his eyes at me and says that I'm not being properly philosophical towards money.

"You shouldn't think that there's not enough money, Mom. You should think of it as sufficient for your needs."

It's not that I don't get what he's saying, it's just that I don't understand how philosophy will persuade the universe to put money in his college fund.

When I was young, I didn't get an allowance. If I needed money to go somewhere, like a dance or a ball game, I'd ask my dad for it.

"Dad, can I have three dollars?"

"If I had three dollars, I wouldn't speak to you."

"Please?"

He'd reach into his pocket and I'd hold my breath, wondering what might come out of it. Sometimes there were a couple of singles in there, sometimes a twenty, sometimes nothing but a handful of loose change. With Dad's pockets, you never knew. I had a large number of siblings who might've cleaned him out already or he might have had to cover an overdraft on the checking account or there could have been a closing on a house the day before. It was feast or famine at our house, growing up.

Last week the subject of allowances came up again. I asked Sam whether any of his friends still got one. He looked embarrassed.

"Yeah, I think Kerrian does."

"So, what is it? Like, five bucks or something?"

"Heh, no. Actually, it's more like fifteen or twenty."

"What? A week? Are you kidding me?"

He shook his head and smiled and I thought it best to leave the subject alone for a while. My kids are very understanding as far as a dollar a week goes, but I hate to think what they'd be picking out at the Goodwill store if I owed them each twenty dollars come payday.

Epitaph for a nasty vegetable

Here lies okra,
pulled out by the roots.
It tasted like crap,
so now it's kaputs.

Joe College

It's almost noon on Wednesday morning and I'm driving my son to the community college campus where he's dual enrolled for the summer in English Comp and Introduction to Sociology. He doesn't seem very enthusiastic about this latest adventure in learning. Maybe it has something to do with the layover he's got between his classes.

"What am I supposed to do for 2 1/2 hours?" he whines.

"Explore, why don't you? Go in and out of all the buildngs. Find the library, check out the bookstore, see where everyone hangs out," I say.

He looks unconvinced.

"You could do your homework," I offer.

"Pfft," he says. "Maybe I'll just find a place to sleep."

I know he was up late the night before, talking online with his friends. Not for the first time, I find myself wishing his friends' parents were better at enforcing bedtime curfews than I am. I think about asking him if he'd like to stay home today. But I have a policy about calling in sick for school. You have to be throwing up to stay home. If you're not throwing up you don't get to call in sick. My son looks bone tired this morning but he's not sick. Besides, this is the first class of the summer semester. He has to go.

He leans his head against the window and pretends to be asleep. "Whoof," he mutters. I ignore him.

I know what his problem is. I recognize the signs. He doesn't want to go to school at the community college. He wants to cuddle up to the computer in his bedroom instead, talking and typing with his friends online. It's warm and familiar on the internet. He knows everybody there and they know him. Community college is scary. Anything can happen to you out in the real world.

My son has always had trouble fitting into the role of brilliant student that I wanted for him. He ignored all attempts to help him organize his work, instead crumpling and jamming his papers any old way into his books. I could spend any amount of money on school clothes every fall and it wouldn't matter since he wore his shirts inside out and backwards anyway, claiming it was "his look."

I remember when he going through a particularly slovenly period in middle school and I put my foot down and told him he had to change his shirt and underwear at least once a day. It was months later that I discovered he was layering on five t-shirts at the beginning of the week, then taking one off every school day. In hindsight, I probably shouldn't have let him get away with it, but it seemed funny at the time.

Today we get to the campus and I walk to the bookstore with him to get his book for his sociology class. There's a line at the checkout that reaches nearly to the back of the store. This is not good. My son is already nervous about college. If we have to wait here for very long it means he's going to be late for his first class of the day. But there doesn't seem to be any choice. He needs this book for his evening class.

After a while we become aware of the muted commentary offered by three girls standing behind us and realize that they're directly contradicting everything one of the cashiers is telling her current customer.

Cashier: "You have to pre-pay for us to order the book for this class."

Girls: "Huh-uh." "Don't do it." "Ain't happenin'."

Cashier: "We'll call you as soon as it comes in."

Girls: "No way." "Huh-uh." "I'm warnin' you."

Cashier: "If it's not the right book, you can return it for a store credit."

Girls: "Don't believe her." "It's a lie." "Huh-uh."

By the time we leave the store, my son is laughing out loud, much less worried, and indeed late for class. I could kiss those girls, but they'd likely not stand for it. ("Huh-uh." "Don't do it." "Back off, yo.")

As we head towards the building where his English Comp class is he separates from me and runs up the stairs to the second floor. "See you later," I call and he turns and waves, then takes the remaining steps two at a time.

I walk to the car and tell myself it's going to be fine. He'll like his classes, he'll enjoy his professors, and he'll find a place to fit in. That's the good thing about community college. There are all sorts of people here. Older people trying to improve their situations, younger people being prodded by their controlling parents. He's bound to find people like himself. Friends in the real world to go along with his virtual ones.

It's not like it's the first time I've watched a child grow up and become more independent. It's just the first time I've seen it happen with this particular child. It's hard letting go of the kid you think you know in order to for him to become the person he knows he is. It's okay, though. We're going to go through this learning experience together.

And now for something completely different

(The following is a story by my sister, Mary. She's my favorite.)

I went to Lafayette, Louisiana and all I got was this lousy black eye.

It started out innocently enough; a long weekend with friends filled with good times, some tennis and a slumber party at a fishing camp. What more could a girl ask for?

The original plan was to fly down to join my former tennis comrades and good friends for a weekend tennis tournament. Well, once the entry fee came to light, $100 per entrant, we all decided unless that tournament t-shirt could bring us to orgasm when we wore it, there was no way any of us wanted to pay that kind of money. So my girlfriends had planned their own tournament of sorts which involved games of tennis each day with whoever wanted to play. Friday we had a slumber party at a fishing cabin that one of the friends was renting while waiting for her house to be rebuilt. Sure, alcohol and fishing poles were involved, a couple of them even ended up being cast into the lake in fact, but that’s not where I got my black eye. No, that didn’t happen until the day before I had to fly home.

We had scheduled a doubles match for Sunday morning, which came in overcast and humid, well this is Louisiana after all. Everything was going along fine, my partner and I were ahead in the match by a couple of games. Couldn’t tell you the score of the game that we were playing at the time when the miscue happened. I was in the back court trying to get my racket on a high bouncing ball, one minute I had it in my sights and swung at the ball and the next minute I can truly say I saw stars. My racket, after making contact with the ball, which I swear was five feet over my head, came out of my hand and was met on the way down by my left orbital socket. No cries for “momma!” or “medic!” was issued from my lips, I was too busy scrambling for my glasses (can’t see shit without them) and putting my baseball cap back on my head. We had a game to play! By the time I’d put myself back together all play had stopped on the court.

“Did we win the point?” I asked my partner, trying to act nonchalant about beaning myself with my own racket.

“Uh, no, we lost it.”

“What?! Oh, maaan,” I whined, “it would’ve made a much better story if we’d at least won the point.”

“What happened?”

“I think I just gave myself a black eye,” I responded, already I could feel the area over my left eyelid swelling.

Karen, my teammate, took a closer look, “Oh wow, I can see what part of the racket hit ya, it left a mark.”

That’s just great, I thought, Jim will never believe this. I mean, one would expect a black eye coming out of Philadelphia, but Lafayette, LA? All that southern hospitality? Please.

After different scenarios were discussed among the players on the court to explain the black eye, like getting into a fight with Bill, Karen’s husband over the point; or a head on collision going after a ball was another. We all decided to consider it a “lagniappe” from the trip, which in Cajun country is something that is thrown in for free.

I did contemplate applying makeup to the other eye to make the blooming color scheme on the one eye less noticeable, except I don’t carry makeup. So I met Jim at the airport braced for an explosive welcome once the offending eye had been spotted.

Apparently, the lighting at the baggage claim is very flattering because Jim didn’t notice a thing, even after giving me a kiss and a hug. It wasn’t until we stopped for something to eat on the way home at a Taco Hell that things got a bit prickly. If you want to be seen in a bad light, go to Taco Bell, it definitely doesn’t show your best side.

Once we had ordered and taken a seat at one of the tables, Jim is spreading out his meal, I’m congratulating myself on dodging a bullet, and the next thing I hear is, “What the hell happened to your eye?” Damn. So I tell him. He was trying to control his laughter by holding it in during the explanation. His shoulders were shaking so much I thought he might fall off his chair. Shaking his head, with a big smile on his face, “Jesus, Mary” was all he said.

I must admit, it’s a gift.

Apology to my CPA

Sorry, Tim, that I didn't fax back my permission slip for you to file my taxes electronically until the day they were due, but your package was hidden under a stack of bills on my table and I kept putting off looking at it because I knew what I'd find when I opened the envelope and that's a return stating that I owed the government seven hundred fifty seven dollars and the state one hundred twenty nine dollars and the government again nineteen dollars for a total of nine hundred and five dollars, Tim, plus there's going to be your bill coming down the pike for two hundred and sixty five dollars to do all the math and take what deductions there were and file all the paperwork and I don't begrudge you a penny of it because back when I had to do it myself it would take me days to sort out all the receipts and to update my Quicken accounts (why doesn't it do this by itself?) and then I would put all the numbers in and they never came out the same way twice and always I was sure that I was paying too much in taxes and my husband thought so, too. (It completely ruined the month of March for me.) Now I'm sure that I am paying too much again but at least it's not due to my own stupidity, it's due more to the government being greedy, maybe. But I don't blame you. I'll never blame you because you are a numbers man, unlike me, and you understand taxes, unlike me, and so it's good that I know someone like you to do my taxes, because the alternative would be me doing them and that would just be too awful.

I'm awake

It's 1:15 in the morning. I can tell this because I've squinted hard at the clock on the shelf next to my dresser clear on the other side of the room. It would be easier to tell the time if the clock were on the bedside table, but my husband needs it to be farther away from the bed so that when the alarm goes off in the morning he has to get out of bed to hit the snooze button. He usually does this three or four times every day. It seems to work for him.

I can hear him speaking now through the door to our room. He's in the hallway and he's talking to Nick. I know this because he's telling him to pick up the clothes in his room and brush his teeth and get to bed. He's probably just come home from working late and has done the usual perimeter walk through the house, checking on the boys and telling them to get off their computers for the night. He's hates this. He says it feels like whenever he sees them he has to yell at them.

I've wrestled with this, too, but it's not as hard for me. The kids are home schooled so I see them all day long. Not all of the time spent with them is nagging time. Sometimes it's fun stuff, like a park day or club day with other home schooled kids. Sometimes it's a field trip, although that happens less often now that they're both in high school.

It's harder to find field trips that are interesting to teenagers. The last one was supposed to be a tour of a recording studio but because the owner's sound engineer didn't make it in to work that day, it devolved into a monologue about the owner's early days in the music business and how, since his voice is gone, he likes to encourage good looking young women to come and sing on his cable tv show. It was educational, all right, just not in the way I'd anticipated.

I hear the thumping up and down the hallway of my oldest son, Sam, as he reluctantly performs a regular Thursday night chore, emptying the wastebaskets. I notice that he's avoiding emptying the wastebasket in my room. He probably thinks I'm sleeping through all of this. I wish I could.

Briefly I consider doing some thumping of my own, out into the kitchen, perhaps, where I could make a cup of cocoa in a put upon manner and inflict some guilt where it would do the most good. I decide I'm really too tired to get up. Maybe I'll read for a while. I flip on the light next to the bed and pick up a dog-eared copy of "Interesting Times" by Terry Pratchett. I love Pratchett. He makes me laugh and I can use a laugh or at least a grin right about now. Damn it. I was sleeping so well, too.

My sister says that when I was young I used to thump up and down the halls when I was mad, just like my kids do now. My dad called me Thumper, which usually made me stomp even harder. I was slow to pick up on teasing back then. I had a hair trigger temper as a teenager, too. My dad seemed to delight in provoking it, or maybe it just seemed like it to me.

I hear footsteps approaching the end of the hall. Will whoever it is notice that there's a light on in my bedroom and feel all contrite or something? The steps recede again. Obviously, nobody's worried about cutting in on anybody's sleep time tonight.

I read for a while and eventually my eyes close more than they stay open and I put the book down and turn out the light. Whatever fireworks were inspired by my husband's return home are all over for this evening. I can sleep, hopefully the boys will sleep, and eventually my husband will sleep. No more drama, not even from me, Thumper.

It's raining

You know what the best thing is about rainy days? I don't have to go running in them. 

If I were a ninja jogger, I'd be out in that mess right now, slogging around the trail down at Bartram Park, but I'm just an amateur runner, someone who runs because it's just a habit I've got into, and not because I was silly and made some promise OUT LOUD that I'd run every day no matter what. Thank god I've got that much sense, at least.

So today is a free day, hurrah! And I don't have to run. My body will object, of course, but that's what brains are for, to keep bodies from getting out of line.

I'm going to sit here on my comfortable butt and just listen to that wet stuff dribble down the outside of my house and revel in the fact that I am not going to be tying on my running shoes, looking for extra shopping bags with which to clean up after my dog, not going to be grabbing my cell phone, my iPod, my headphones and my car keys, all of which add at least five pounds to my pockets, making them flap at my sides when I run like little chicken wings, not going to be deciding whether it's worth it to bring the cooler and get the milk first or whether I should just walk into the grocery store, wet and stinking, and get it afterwards, not going to pee three times before I leave the house in order to avoid having to squat at the side of the trail, anxiously scanning both ways and practicing what to say for when I'm discovered in the woods with my pants down ("Thought I saw something valuable here, so I'm just taking a look at it, but I'm all done, now, so I'll just be running along,"), not going to be seeing the lady with the red hair out there in the matching jogging pants and sweatshirt, the guy with the hound dog named Jackson, the two probably queer guys who always look disdainful of my own mostly casually thrown together outfit--a shirt that says "You had me at woof" and shorts that are rusty black with holes in the legs--and who run like gazelles, not going to race down the trail to get back to my car before the episode of "Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me" is through and I have to stop laughing and start thinking about how hard it is to run in the mornings.

No, I'm not going to do any of that, because it's raining, and I love rainy days, almost as much as I love running.

Nick Armstrong, boy of steel

One day, when Nick was a sixth grader in middle school, he came home and I asked him how it went.

"I'm sore."

"Really? Why is that?"

"Well, we had to do the President's Physical Fitness test today in P.E. and so Coach told us all to do 25 push-ups. And I said, 'Twenty-five? That's not hard. I can do fifty!' and Coach said 'Oh, you can, can you?' and I said, 'Yes, I can. As a matter of fact, for seven points, I can do 150!' and Coach said, 'Okay. But if you don't do 150 then you lose 7 points," and I said, 'How about 300 push ups for 20 points?' and Coach said, 'You're on!' so then I did 300 push ups."

"You did 300 push ups?"

"Yes, I did. And Coach said, 'Well, Nick, you sure surprised me. I didn't think you could do it,' and he took out his little notebook and wrote down 'Nick Oliver - 120 points' in it. Some kid wanted to give me a high five but I had to hit his hand with my head because I couldn't lift my arms."

"Then what happened?"

"Well, Mom, I managed to get up off the floor without using my arms, but when I got to the locker room, I couldn't get my padlock open to get my clothes out. I turned the combination using my teeth and I was trying to push it open with my nose but I wasn't having any luck and some kid came in and saw me and asked me if I needed any help and I said, 'Sure,' and he opened my padlock and I got my clothes on. Then I backed into my backpack and ran for the bus."

That night I gave him an ibuprofen and made him soak in the tub. He slept like a rock. Next day when he came home I asked if the kids had started calling him "Pushup Boy" and he said, "No, Mom. They're calling me 'Armstrong.'"