We’ll get back to the Captain and his shipload of gold in a bit. I’m sure the search for the missing compass and that foul, sticky-fingered monkey can go on without us for a few hours while I lament endlessly upon my personal condition. Everything in good time, I like to say, which is exactly the reason I gave the woman on the phone a few minutes ago for why the truck payment is late. Besides, according to my calendar, July just happened, making me wonder how she could possibly be stressed about it so much after only four or five days? Good Lord, if she could see the condition of the truck, with all it’s nicks and dents and permanently ground in filth, I think it would do her a world of good. Calm her right down, I’d think.
Good stories and truck payments take time, I should have said, instead of whatever sob story I happened to end up telling. For a man who knows next to nothing about economics, I spin a mean down and out tale, telling several entertaining children’s versions as well as the less popular collection’s version. The woman sounded nice so I went with the children’s version. I like the part where Papa Bear looks in his wallet, discovers it empty, and growls, “Hey, someone’s taken me to the cleaners!”
Or something like that. It’s different every time.
Maybe instead of the story I should have kept it simple and told her something like: They call it folding money because like a story plot, money unfolds slowly before our checking account’s eyes. Have you heard the economics fable called Gold Behind Locks and the Three Bears? I’d love to tell it to you if you have the time.
Or even simpler: August? You’ve got to be kidding me? Already?
I don’t think I’ll ever figure out how the world works. I don’t understand faith or acceptance or trust. Why soldiers will allow themselves to be ordered into situations of certain death, then fight like hell to get out. Why nurses do the dirty work and doctors make the money. Why more kids don’t watch the news, then slit their parents’ throats during the night. You’d think that the homeless would organize and demand free access to Goodwill, or that cats would realize they could drive humans from the planet with the smell of their excrement.
I washed the dishes, countertops, and stove this morning. The boy has been practicing his cooking skills, which means that slices of cheese somehow end up dropping onto hot burners when I’m not looking, sizzling into hard, black spots that stink up the place. Oops, he says.
Maybe I should have just said that to the woman on the phone. Oops.
I’ll check back in an hour or two, to see how the captain is coming along with his gold. In the meantime, I suppose I’ll drive into town and give the bank some of my own hard-earned money. If I can find it, that is. The bank, not the money. No wait, I take that back. Both. I lost my own compass long ago and can’t find a thing. I think it was stolen by the very same monkey that now pesters the poor captain. Imagine that.