Stupid Snuck In

I was at dinner with Matt "Caveman" Dunn last night talking finance (thats "f'nance" to you, my highbrow friends). I was just slinging some advice around; you know - testing out the 'ol CPA license. I am, after all, in f'nance. I'm not sure if you knew this or not but: I know about stuff.

I apparently know just enough about stuff that all I need is a well-intended friend and some cheap mexican food and I will have made a complete ass of myself by the time the cheese dip gets cold.

The rosy glow from my brilliant advice on credit cards hadn't worn off yet when I got to thinking - maybe I should look into the 'ol credit balance and see just exactly who's getting fat in MY pigsty these days. They know I'm a CPA over there, so I'm nearly certain Chase Manhattan wouldn't dare to tinker with my interest rates, right? It makes sense. You'd think that having one's very own CPA would be sort of like having anti-finance-charge balm on at all times - like mosquito repellent. Flap that CPA card around hard enough and creditors buzz on down to the next picnic. Intimidating, I know.

Normally.

In this case it'd been so long since I looked at a Chase statement I hadn't noticed the 14.5% rate increase. Initially I wrote "couple" of months ago, but lets be honest - it was definitely a "few" which, to me, typically means "more than two, but I'm not man enough to admit how many." At least, that’s what the credit woman at Chase said; "a few."

She was completely resistant to all of my charms; even the "wheedle" which I consider particularly effective against callcenter women. So, my early Christmas present to myself was: paying off a credit card for major home improvements.

Sure, building the basement was a good idea. And yeah, a little outstanding debt is Smart if it pays for itself, right?

Well, Smart left the door open and Stupid snuck in.

Bandito

I couldn't help but notice the other day that my friend Ernie's parents have something horrible and terrifying standing in their yard: tiny midget horses. Several of them actually. I find them extremely disconcerting and, to be perfectly honest, I'm more than just a little bit scared of them. But for some reason every time I see one all I can think about is: "I'd really like to ride that little horse."

Despite years of requests, his parents still won't let me.

All this "you weight 215lbs and that horse only weighs 30" business is ridiculous. Everybody knows horses can lift much heavier things than themselves.

Look at the Budweiser horses and that big wagon they're always dragging around. I find it hard to believe that thing is hollow and weighs less than a horse. Its got kegs of frosty, delicious beer in it. And we all know that's not light stuff. Even lite beer is heavier than say, feathers, for instance - you know? And a whole wagon full of feathers would be heavy as lead if you packed them down right.

I saw an impossibly small children's saddle on a hobby horse the other day, and I thought: that would be just the ticket for riding one of those tiny midget horses. You could strap on your capguns and plastic spurs, spur that little midget horse into a gallop and you'd be 300% faster than the kid on that hobby horse any day of the week.

If I was a kid again, and I managed to get myself a midget horse I'd be THE MAN. All the other kids in the neighborhood would be tooling around on there stupid Huffy bicycles, and I'd come galloping in on the wings of a dove - clippity clop!! There'd be 7-year-old girls camped out on the lawn day and night.

I guess its a good thing I didn't have a crazy little midget horse in 1987, because I'm not sure I could have used all that power for good.

Sure, the potential would have been there for me to become a little Lone Ranger - serving the cause of all that is good, noble, and right: I might have been a one-child neighborhood watch on ponyback.

BUT I probably would have ended up a tiny little bandito instead; terrorizing the neighborhood on my ignoble steed - pasturing in your geraniums, watering in your sprinklers - it would have been chaos.