How a lousy $50 messed up my week

Over the holidays my youngest daughter Jane babysat some children that attend my works after school care program. I was surprised and somewhat concerned when I noticed Jane had some financial issues – she refused attending the movies with the family (I was shouting but her attitude meant I didn’t elaborate that fact) and then another issue with the girls requirement of expensive footwear when I will only pay for basic footwear – and Jane went without. I suspected the mother of the children she babysits had not paid her and therefore I was annoyed with the mother….

My annoyance reached a crescendo that highlighted my madness on Monday morning when the mother rang at 6.20 am and asked Jane to babysit the children as they were sick – even though Jane is attending her last formal year of junior high school and school resumed that day. By the time Jane informed me of this fact – and I am heading out the door to pick up a workmates 3 year old and start work at 8 am myself…the difficulty of being able to pick and choose your fights with a troubled teenager.. and with a few words chosen straight from the gutter of the fishdocks I didn’t choose to drag Jane to school and let her proceed to her babysitting job.

Even though I had a hankering that something was very amiss with Jane’s finances.

Turns out Jane had lent one of my friends $50 and this had caused her poverty during the school holidays. Apparently one of my friends had taken Jane to a mothers group Monday week past and had a transaction declined at a store. Jane offered the money immediately.

Another example of Jane being the beautiful person that she is. Jane can be taciturn, willful, deceitful, hell she can tell damn ass lies about us…she can be lazy, she can be violent towards her siblings; but…. Sometimes – especially with children, animals sick or the elderly she can be so caring and lovely. Give you her last $50 (it nearly bloody was because I was getting ready to give her boss a mouthful for not paying her)

Jane did not tell me about the transaction because… well I am not entirely sure why. Why my friend didn’t tell me about the damn thing… annoys me too. My friend is not particularly good at remembering her debts. I cringe when she asks me to buy her cigarettes or something and she will pay me back. There is a good 50% chance she will somehow forget or manage to jip you with some “deal” to repay it. Always a good chance you wont see the money when it was promised to you. It IS only money and I remind myself that is not what is important to me.

Anyway – I put the money into Jane’s account. And I fielded a weird phone call this morning before 8am from my friend requesting stuff she insisted on lending me months ago that I am sure went back inside her resume folder I was working on at the time. She had wanted me to use it for a selection criteria for myself that I was not very interested in doing. It was the worksheets and information from years ago when we both did a volunteer course for a local organization that I thought was all crap then.

There is more. And in the weird way of blogging it will all probably come out back to front. Life feels like that a bit to me at the moment. It is completely back to front to go to work and see smiles and receive hugs to the knees, giggles and growth and then to feel hammered when I go home… to three teenagers fighting all watching pay tv, playing on the internet or on xbox or ps2 telling me what they want (that they interpret as need). Sometimes I take it out on the dogs or MOTH. Not that they are perfect either, and of course I am so far from perfect it horrifies me….

I wonder if it is too late to teach MOTH and the dogs not to eat on the sofas? Sure would beat yelling at them. I don’t know why I never remember Dotti is deaf when I yell at her.