Please forgive me for the rant you read last week. I must have had a relapse of cactus needles in my sitting place or something real aggravating on my mind when that spewed out of my head! I suspect it was mostly true but, all the same, it was not very nice!
This week is a little happier, got some of the income tax stuff found and put in the proverbial shoe box. Our stuff is in a Justin boot box, sturdy and big with a handle. I would just cram the receipts in but you gotta figure the close relative has to know what all the money went for. We are required to sit patiently at the table and go through each little piece of grimy and yellowed paper. The dash of a truck is the best file cabinet man ever invented and I use mine faithfully!
The evening is shot to heck by the time we get the little piles made of all the places we must match up with checks and tickets! Now, I am not a real busy feller after dark and I do enjoy sitting around visiting, but this just isn’t sitting around visiting! I find this to be the most useless time a person could spend. We can’t visit because her head is deep into the work and I sure better not comment on another subject. Actually, I can’t even talk about the ongoing rat killing because it might detract her from her train of thought! I wish it was a train; I’d hop it and go to Arizona!
Next in line is the constant sighing as we run a total of the cost of gasoline, feed, fertilizer and the lime tickets, bringing on a tongue clicking! It is almost like sitting in the warden’s office and waiting on the parole board to make a decision. We know I cannot make the feed cheaper, lower the cost of gas or make lime myself. I have to spend what I did or this place would go to rack and ruin. My close relative knows the reasons; it is the totals that scare a sane person half to death.
I have not any ideas how to approach the top pencil pusher of this outfit for enough money to buy the new hay wagon I need. Moving round bales would be so much easier and, if I stress the savings in fuel, she may not blow up. I need hard figures and I think I could get some if I could think of a good reason to go to the big town where the dealership is.
That brings up another barb. Do I need to run hither and yon when gasoline is higher than a cat’s back? I sure hate these times, the times she really knows what is going on!
It is my opinion, and everyone has one, it is better to take your licking and learn a few lessons doing it, than to run blind where your money is concerned. I know cash is squeezed for every penny and I know we are far from fixed, but I also realize that without a little pleasure a man could get real cranky and not even like his job! I like my job, except for the bad parts, so I am gonna enjoy something every chance I get. I even plan on making chances!
Bill is a pen name used by the Gravette author of this weekly column.
Opinion, Pages 6 on 01/30/2013