I’m back from a short trip to Florida and I’ve spent the day fixing things that are broken. Ever since the e-mail I sent a few weeks back about things here at the Walker household being “out of control”, Jean has been making me pay the price for my comments in subtle ways. In our bathroom we have separate sinks and “work areas” but share a single drawer between our domains. Jean has her toothpaste, lipstick and various other beauty items in one plastic box and I have my razor, toothpaste and other he-man supplies in another plastic box. Over the last couple of weeks I’ve found Jean’s hair thing-a-ma-jig, lipstick, and other stuff in my box. I have almost no hair, so the thing-a-ma-jig has absolutely no use to me and I haven’t gotten to the lipstick stage yet. I took those as not so subtle hints to lay-off the comments, so I’ve tried to be a good boy.

So, while I was in Florida, she tried to do something else to get my attention. I’m sure Jean, Becky and Judy sat around, drinking wine, trying to think of something that would really make me snap to attention and then it came to them…screw up his checkbook. So Jean called me yesterday in Florida (she could have waited but wanted to make me squirm knowing I couldn’t do anything about it) and told me that she went to the bank to have them make some counter checks since she was out and she needed some to pay bills. They “inadvertently” (yeah…right) used my account number. So she was writing checks to pay her bills but they were clearing my account. No problem I told her…just transfer the total amount of the checks from her account to mine to cover. The checks totaled 263.21 so she transferred 264.00!! Can you believe it…how in the world can I get that extra .79 into my checkbook?!

As if that wasn’t enough, she finally got around to ordering checks for her account (if she had done it on time she wouldn’t have had to have counter checks made, but let’s not go there) which she received while I was gone. Sounds great…except when I got home I had a package of checks in the mail that I didn’t order and a 26.95 charge for printing them. She blamed it on the bank, of course. Oh, well. It gives me something to do sitting up here in the cold watching it snow.

I did have a good time in Florida with Mom and Bobby Butane. We took a few trips down memory lane and visited some spots I hadn’t been to in 45 years. The weather was crappy by native Floridian standards, but nice compared to what we had up here. I had a relapse of my sinus crud so I didn’t feel that good all week, but recovered just in time to scarf down a huge strawberry shortcake at Parksdale Farms in Plant City for Uncle Fred’s birthday. He’s quite elderly (not much older than I am) but seems to be holding up well and it was good to have family together. Back on the diet tomorrow.

Just (Fixing The Accounting Nightmare) Jack