Five bees for a quarter.

A week ago, I made an arrangement with a collections agency to pay-off an outstanding debt from 2006. The settlement upon which we agreed is more than modest. The rules are simple: On the first day of January, my first payment is automatically deducted, and then on the fifteenth of every month thereafter for four months. I provided my check numbers, spoke to a bored-sounding supervisor, and hung up the phone.

What a reasonable person who is not me would have done is open a drawer, grab a pen, and write 'void' on each of the checks involved in the transactions. A reasonable person would would not have hung up the phone, stared at his hands for two minutes, and gone into the kitchen to make a tuna sandwich. Reasonable faculties would not allow me to write and mail said voided checks. A reasonable person would have avoided further financial hassles, fees, and anxious glances at his bank account every five minutes.

My financial incompetence borders on the ridiculous, the remarkable. My instincts, well, stink. For months now I've been using a separate bank account, originally opened ostensibly as a well-spring of savings, but really only existing to buy stupid, unnecessary shit. For example, my primary account is out of money. I want to buy a sandwich for no other reason than it's there, and I haven't eaten in at least twenty minutes. I can see myself reaching for the card in my wallet. The logical part of my brain must be too overcome with the smell of sourdough to remind me that with the overdraft fees included, the sandwich will cost over forty-dollars, and won't have enough mayonnaise on it. The sad, little account should have been closed the day it was opened.

I assert this New Year's Resolution backed with absolutely no confidence: I must learn to get a better handle on my finances. These days, my odds of winning a triathlon are far greater than of me finishing a pay period with enough money to get a pizza delivered. My checkbook is jammed in the farthest recesses of my desk, because I don't want to see it. I know I've disappointed it too many times to keep it in the open. I can't stand staring at my blank ledger without remorse.

I have printed bank-statements, and colored them categorically with a dazzling array of wonderful-smelling highlighters. I've tried to sort my spending into groups: food, gas, sandwiches, bills, and misc. The last category is the most nefarious of them all, since it's so vague. If buying antique spittoons from online auctions falls into the misc. category, then it's acceptable, since it's allowed for in the 'budget.' Anything validated by a thoughtfully established category is fine and dandy.

I must figure out where my money is going. I play accountant, and pour over my balance-sheets. I boil coffee. My ashtray fills, and the smoke obscures my adding-machine. Sweat drips from beneath my bright green banker's visor. Each financial analysis ends the same way, with me throwing up my hands, and going to make a sandwich. I never really see anything notable, no real reason why I'm rationing my bread slices, and paying for coffees with quarters from my change-cup days before getting my next paycheck.

Then, there's my lone credit card, which manages against all logic to stay open, and which, if I wanted to, I could pay off completely in a month. I guess I must not want to. Subconsciously, I must enjoy the ball-shriveling strain that comes from getting calls from creditors at 10pm on Sunday nights. A year ago, I asked one of them if they just couldn't raise my credit limit. The nice lady had a really pretty laugh.

I don't know my credit score, but since my car's interest rate is nineteen percent, it's probably not too great. I keep being informed by creditable sources (I know, I know,) that credit matters in life, and that having a credit score under nine-hundred makes a person undesirable to the opposite sex, prone to alcoholism, pimples, impotence and landing jobs singing songs about serving iced-tea to strangers while wearing pirate costumes. For a fee, I can get email alerts, and sky-pilots can write my perfect credit score in the clouds for all to admire. These days, I need sparkling credit just to pick my nose.

I heard recently that banks make something like sixty-percent of their profits in fees. I'm glad to be contributing to the now robust health of our financial institutions. The worst part is that I used to be a banker, before I got fired for 'allegedly' opening a credit card for a kid whose father didn't approve. In retrospect my managers were probably just upset that I let a woman's home-loan application sit in the backseat of my car for four days. I never did check into that one. So, I have no excuse for not playing the game with better skill. My bank wants my money, so they don't mind it when I hemorrhage fees, but unlike them, I am not too big to fail. I need to fire my sweaty, chain-smoking accountant, pay-off what I can, when I can, and stop flinching when it's my turn to pick up the tab. I will also need new highlighters.