Recently, a friend of mine told me a story that made me both instantly and insanely jealous. He told me that he had been paying some bills and had noticed that there was an unusually large amount of money in his account. Concerned that some checks had failed to clear, he spent a long time time going over his account to try and find out exactly when the problem began, only to finally trace it to a point sometime in the early summer. Which, coincidentally, was the same time his youngest child had graduated from college. That’s when he realized that there wasn’t a mistake in his account: the reason there was such an unusually large amount of was because, for the first time in over a quarter of a century, he wasn’t paying for anybody but himself and his wife. He felt like he had just gotten a raise.
Personally, I think when that glorious day comes I will feel more like one of those athletes who trains all year with extra weights on their ankles, or an open parachute on their back, or maybe with their legs tied together in the pool. I imagine myself bursting out of the starting gate with so much extra energy (read: money) and spring in my step that it doesn’t even feel like I’m actually running, but rather like I’ve just had my wings unclipped for the first time in years.
Does that sound too harsh? Don’t get me wrong: I love both my children, and am still happy with my choice to have them, but damn, are they expensive. I mean, they cost me money all the time. And I don’t just mean for the extra stuff, like ballet shoes and soccer uniforms, but for the stuff that no one would ever consider to be luxuries. Like ramen. And sheets.
Yes, sheets. Four people in one house means at least two beds (unless your life is a skit from Hee Haw), and twice as many beds means twice as many sheets. Which means that you’ll either be spending twice as much money on linen, or the same amount of money and just get crappier stuff. At least for the children. (Come on, there’s no reason that both of us should suffer from a low thread count. I mean, at least I’m still going to have my sheets in a few years; the ones I buy for the kids’ beds will invariably be lost by then. How, you ask, does one manage to lose a sheet? No clue. No clue whatsoever. I’ve found it best for my own sanity if I don’t look too deeply into those things anyway.)
There’s also the multiplication factor when it comes to things like vacations (any airline ticket times four is painful), phone plans, and even books. (There was no way Clementine and I were going to share the seventh Harry Potter book—which meant, of course, two books.)
When they were younger I thought that having two kids meant that at least there were some things I would get to reuse, but, of course I ended up having children of not only two different genders but also two very different personalities. I don’t think Clyde is going to passing his size ten ballet shoes down to Clementine anytime soon, and even if he was willing to wear any of her ”Pro-Feminist Cat “ hand-me-downs, I think that ship sailed when he got to be five inches taller than her. And counting.
Still, wheneverI get too down about my fiscal hemorrhaging, I think of my friend and his late life “raise” and I feel slightly mollified. And hopeful. Just think: I’ll be like the guy who liked to hit himself in the head with a hammer. Why? “Because it always feels so good when I stop.”