A DAD'S LIFE:Family fiscal meltdown has become an annual event, writes ADAM BROPHY
ACH. ALL LAST week this newspaper ran a series on the Squeezed Middle, how the largest segment of the working masses is affected by recession and how this impacts on economic recovery. I had to ignore it because I was busy wiping tears from my face with the latest bank statement.
Last week was the annual father of the Brophy family fiscal meltdown hoopla. It’s been a part of our calendar for a few years now and I’m hoping at some stage in the near future a member, any member, of the family involved will pay attention when I say: “Stop thinking our name is Apple Inc and put the card back in the bag.”
This year I produced a red pen for the formal budgetary session. The red implied the severity of the occasion. Previous years involved pencils, crayons, leaky blue biros and beer mats. I wanted the quorum to know this year I mean business. Next year I will have mastered Excel and heads will roll.
The red pen goes to work and points out the basic observation that what we earn has little relation to what we spend. Faces glaze and small spit bubbles form in the mouths of the three females I share a home with.
“Something will have to be done,” I say, in capital letters.
“Is Nora coming to my house for a sleepover?” says the younger.
“Dad, if you buy me a pony, Auntie Sara will pay for the saddle,” says the elder.
“You do realise your gym membership comes out of my account every month,” says the missus.
I stare at my A4 page, with its red markings, and parallel, ordered columns, and it makes sense. It tells me what we have and what we can afford to buy every week. It makes my stomach feel okay, as if there’s a chance we’ll be okay. That some day I’ll go to pay a bill and there will be money in my account and I won’t have to ring my mother and pretend there was another flood and would she mind slipping me a few bob for a couple of weeks until the insurance kicks in.
It’s all the later lying about problems with the insurance company that causes the ulcers. I have to invent dialogues with non-existent customer service clerks about fabricated natural disasters to a person I love, just to buy time to heat the house.
The A4 sheet makes sense. The faces gathered round the table don’t. They want stuff. Who am I kidding – I want stuff too. But this time I will be strong. This time I hammer the page with the red pen, hammer it as hard as you can with a Bic, and insist there will be change. Change, you hear? And if not change, there will be blood.
Ah yeah, There Will Be Blood. I haven’t seen it since the cinema and Daniel Day-Lewis went for it in that one. I love the opening scene, all that digging and pain and no dialogue for about 10 minutes. How about I rent that for us? I could get The Smurfs for the kids and pick up an Indian on the way home. Have you any cash? Don’t worry I’ll stick it on the card, I’m getting a cheque next week.
See, I have financial ADD. One minute I’m stressing about lack of pensions and savings and making rent, the next I’ve bought a set of carbon bike wheels online for the price of a small car and I’m digging in the kids’ piggy banks for grocery money.
Stuff. It’s the bane of my life, and the greatest distraction. Never mind the fact that oil to move our cars and keep us warm now costs more than gold mated with diamonds fused with platinum.
Never mind the fact that I’m funding the process to hunt down some wealthy developer’s Ferrari while he scoffs from his helicopter hovering over the city . Never mind the fact that if I get sick I’ll have to dig my own ditch within shouting distance of a hospital and wait in hope, holding my bubbling innards in, despite having paid more health insurance in the past 10 years than U2 did in taxes. I still want stuff for me and my kids to play with. Useless, pointless, badly made stuff that will put a smile on our faces for a good 10 minutes before we get distracted by The Simpsons.
“So, are we all agreed on the fiscal policy for the coming 12 months?”
They twirl hair and chew nails, thrum the table top and mark time until they can go elsewhere. I turn off the live cabinet meeting and return attention to my thrumming, chewing, twirling, degenerate brat of a family.