Day #1. Money: Where the hell is mine?

Once upon a time, in a land called College, a young girl named Beth dutifully attended classes, wrote papers with all the diligence expected of her Catholic upbringing and impressed her professors in class with her insight and motivation.


And all the the Adults in this land called College told her that these exercises and courses would prepare her for a land called Reality, where people with degrees from College would be lavished with beautiful gold coins -- more, said Adults, than those who never lived in the land called College.


One day Beth and all her friends left college. Adults gave them good luck gold coins in Hallmark greeting cards and Beth and her friends went to the land called Reality.



Beth found a job in Reality. It did not utilize a single one of the skills she had learned in the land of College, but she stayed positive, because she believed the job would bring the magical gold coins the Adults spoke of.



And I was positive. Until I found out that a manager at McDonald's makes the same salary I do.


Seriously.



I have clearly followed the wrong career path.


Now, I don't want to belabor the obvious because I know everybody is suffering from the economic meltdown our country is experiencing right now. However, I do want to stress an important point:


I was broke before the meltdown. Now I am just more broke.


Remember when we were young and we dreamed of things like stock portfolios (we didn't know what they were, we just knew people with money had them) and expendable income and retirement accounts? Remember that?


Story:



When I started teaching in Richmond, I did something "responsible" and "adult" and opened a 401k. I chunk of my potential beer and shoe money now goes into said 401k in the hopes that when I'm too old to enjoy beer and heels, I will be able to afford them anyway.


I now recieve quarterly (or something) account statements. These are replete with charts, and projections, and estimations and deductions and transfers...


All of which I ignore because I have not one clue what they hell they mean. Don't lie. You don't either.



The other day I found a new one sitting in the stack of mail littering the kitchen counter. I cut directly to the account balance.



I thought they had mailed me a statement for a seven-year-old's savings account.



Truly, I think I had more money in the bank immediately following my First Communion.


However, I am going to give credit where credit is due and pat myself on the back for at least opening the damn thing.


Because when I'm 65, I'm buying myself some PBR in a can and a pair of orthopedic shoes and languishing atop my 12 gold coins on my Craftmatic Adjustable Bed: