TRIPPIN’ DOWN ( or through ? or around??) ME(s)MOREE LAYING ~

(checkbook) TRANSACTION REGISTER #31   (Jan. 2008 à Sept. 2009)

               I don’t expect ANYONE to read this, but …

               We all have (habitual) rituals ‘n such, right?  One of mine is that … when … I fill up a check-book-transaction register, and retire it to be replaced by a new one …

               I put the just-replaced register into a box in my desk and toss the oldest one.  That way, the number of old registers stays the same – because if I don’t toss the oldest, heck, I’d probably have more than a couple dozen more just taking up space, and who the heck would want to check-check-registers of what was happening many, many years ago?

               And so, I put register #43 into the box, and took out #31, and … thought I’d just glance thru’ it.  See what, financially (more likely indebtedly), I was dealing with … SEVENTEEN YEARS AGO. 

               Whoa … “It was a rough year”.

               Scanning through the passing of time, #31 showed that early on I quit/ lost my job (Colorado O&G Commission) and had either part-time or no employment, until I got back on with the COGCC (a year later).  Perusing how “I got by” financially during that time was, according to the register, if not a comedy of errors, but a quilt-like fabric of raiding savings accounts, selling stuff on eBay, borrowing from a couple retirement & mutual-fund accounts, and a lot of what Deb could/would spare – as she was usually at a part-time job during this time.  (Plus, she had gotten an inheritance from her mom’s passing, and also an annual check from a close childhood friend.)

               For the recent past several years I’ve become somewhat used to my check-account balance being rarely under 4-figures.  Yet, while memory-lane-traipsing thru #31, sometimes I’d be in A NEGATIVE CHECK-BOOK (lack-of) BALANCE, and I could identify with the person scrambling to keep the boat afloat, above water level.  Early on, I was still paying for an apartment about 40 miles from my house – I was “supposed” to be residing within 20 or so miles of the Rifle office.  And the apartment utility bills…

               In the deposit column was my last COGCC check.  This was followed by the first check from my brief (and somewhat disastrous) stint with the state Highway regulatory agency.  Yeah, THAT brought back me(s)mories of what fun that was … (I had finally gotten a job as a village idiot in an agency where I was not idiotic enough).

               In between the scrambling(s) of cobbling and raiding and looking-beneath cushions in the living-room furniture to get just enough $$ to pay the bills were a few paychecks for whatever temporary agency I was occasionally trying to work for.

               The register indicated that we had taken a family trip to a Mexican seaside resort!  I received a few checks from SMA … I do not recall exactly (but could guess “in-exactly”) what I was supposedly doing for them.  I/we provided $4000 to our son to pay for his wedding (autumn of 2009).  Aren’t the parents of the bride supposedly and traditionally bound by convention to fund this event?

               And during that time we had a heckuva mortgage for the house, plus payments on vehicles – both categories of which we’ve been mercifully “immune” from for quite some time now.

               Way-ell, anyweigh, I’ve had a heckuva day re-living (¿re-thinking?) this span of time, and in some ways appreciative that I/we soldier-ed through it.  But, also … it was, a buncha the time, fun. 

               Well … except for the prostate-cancer surgery part …