Money In The Bank! August 30, 2005 ~ 3:26 pm
Posted by Julie in : Daily Grind , trackback
The Afghan From Hell, looking very dapper against the Piss Crusader’s Couch Condom.
Before I get to the main part of this post, I have to say that The Youngest turned 10 yesterday, so Happy Birthday to my favorite 10-year-old! I would tell you what I got her, but she might stumble across the blog and I’d hate to ruin the surprise.
Now, the happy happy happy news in my world: Chris-at-the-bank is a golden god. I have Money In The Bank today and can pay bills! And the reason Money In The Bank is capitalized isn’t just because it’s a very good thing, but because every time I say that phrase, I think of my great-aunt Marge, who died a few years back.
Marge was always a trip, always wanting to hang out with her great-nieces and nephews when she saw us (not very often for my cousins and I, since Marge and her sister Edith lived in Florida and I lived in Pennsylvania). Her sister, Edith, was a grouch with a sarcastic sense of humor that I grew to appreciate, but that scared the shit out of me when I was young. Edith always snapped at us, Marge always laughed with us. Who would you want to hang out with?
By the time I was in grad school, Marge had full-blown Alzheimer’s and Edith’s health was going downhill as well, so my mom and I went to visit them one 4th of July. (Let’ s just pause so you can absorb that. 4th of July, in Florida. It’s Hell on earth.) While we were there, I got to see the funny parts of Alzheimer’s, the parts that leave you laughing and then wondering if you should be laughing at a sick person.
Marge and I went through her jewelry box on afternoon as she picked out items she wanted me to have. We went through that box three times, because she couldn’t remember that we had just gotten finished going through it, and I wasn’t about to tell her we had. The first time we went through the box, she told me about all the pieces, but didn’t really see anything she thought I would like, and said several items were “junk.” The second time she went through the box, some of the “junk” miraculously turned into “good jewelry” and she gave me it. By the third time we went through the box, all of the junk was good jewelry, and she loaded me up with it. Some of it really was junk (did I really need costume jewelry from the 70’s? No.), but I kept it because Marge wanted me to and Mom and Edith okayed it. I wear it sometimes, too, because she was worried that she was giving me something I would never use. I can still hear her muttering under her breath about “people never wearing jewelry they’re given” every time I wear a ring of hers.
But the real fun of the visit was the afternoon Marge’s Social Security check came in. The first time she opened the envelope, she got really excited. “Ooooh, I’ve got money in the bank!” she exclaimed with a big grin. She put the envelope to the side and started doing something else…probably playing solitaire (something she and my grandmother were both great for everytime their hands were empty). About five minutes later, she gets tired of solitaire, looks over and sees the envelope. She looks in it, and with that same big grin, exclaimed “Ooooh, I’ve got money in the bank!” She put it aside and picked up the cards again. Five minutes later…you guessed it: “Ooooh, I’ve got money in the bank!” After about two more repeats of this my mom and I were laughing hard, and Edith was pissed enough to take the envelope away and say something snarky. I don’t remember what the hell Edith said, but I’ll remember “Ooooh, I’ve got money in the bank!” till I die.
And today I say with a big grin on my face, “Ooooh, I’ve got Money In The Bank!”
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