Rejection at the Check-Out, Ba-Humbug Christmas and Accidental Thievery

Begin rant/confession:

DENIED AT THE RX CHECK-OUT
Today I'm ashamed that I couldn't afford to buy all three of the medications my daughter needs during a jagged bout with the flu and a deeply infected ear. Screw splurging during the final holiday gift rush when I have bigger fish to .... Well, you know the rest of that tired, old cliche.

"Ouch," the pediatrician said, squinting her eyelids into thin slivers of skin as she peered with a light-up thingamajig into Pigtail Sprite's tender right ear only hours ago.

"That looks so, sooo painful. It's as red in there as that chair. And so FULL of pus !" The good doc pointed to a kid-sized plastic primary color red chair to illustrate her point. "She's tough not to cry through such pain." And I'm numb enough not to pick up on it.

Money. Think Simply Red and his "too tight to mention" bit, but with a much less swanky voice. I wish I weren't such a biff who spends far too much money on overpriced, overindulgent holiday treat flavored caffeine jolts I could just as easily brew at home. While I'm synthetically wide awake, abuzz and alert, my daughter is wheezing ever so slightly in her sleep.
Sound the bad mom alert.

Money is so scarce lately that buying a grande nonfat pumpkin spice latte could very easily send us into the red. On the other hand, not buying one could send me careening asleep at the wheel and off the road.

How was I to know that Pigtail's meds would total some $65? After Frosted Mini Wheats, Juicy Juice boxes, cheap one-ply toilet paper and a thick pack of sugar-free Bubble Yum (to quiet Pigtail's cantankerous at the check-out brother, Cheeks, 3) rolled down the conveyer belt at Target, I was left with hardly enough cash to cover sick visit co-pay, my usual remaining balance at the doctor's office and antibiotics/inhaler/bronchial opening medications.

Suddenly, standing at the crowded pharmacy counter this morning, I felt an odd kinship with the millions of American senior citizens who can scarcely afford their medicine. Humiliated. Embarrassed. Ashamed. Thankfully my daughter is too young to understand how broke we are.

The astounding rejection beeps of my only two debit/credit cards sounded like dueling fog horns in my red, hot, embarrassed ears as the cashier kindly tried to appear casual and unmoved while sliding the thin plastic rectangles through the little machine over and over again.

"Sometimes the connection's just slow," she whispered, trying to assuage my obvious embarrassment. My face was beet red by now. I felt the eyes of the onlookers behind me boring with judgment into my tensed up back.

I wish I could blog about something other than my failures, including a glaring F minus at keeping my shoestring budget assembled and at the ready for emergencies like these. I wish I could blog about something far less narcissistic. Something meaningful. Something that would inspire, entertain, perhaps even change the world for the better. After all, this blog is supposed to be lighthearted and funny.

For now, though, I'll stick with documenting the complaints of the working poor living over our heads under the crush of overwhelmingly huge mortgages (that we ignorantly bit off by choice) in Southern California.

(So much for the people I meet/know who say that I shouldn't be so candid, so all-revealing on my blog. To them I say, why cover up reality? Why hide from the hard truths of my situation? This is how my day was. Plain and simple. There are few topics as touchy as money but I have nothing to hide. I'm not looking for pity, just for a venting venue. Trust me, I feel and act so much nicer, so much more relaxed as a woman, wife and mother when I have a place to publish/let off steam and know I'm being heard and possibly even understood.)

BA-HUMBUG, I SAY, TO COMMERCIAL CHRISTMAS
The sick thing is, I don't really know a bloody thing about struggling. Not like my grandmother did during the Great Depression. Not like the health insurance-less, food stamp/WIC eligible mothers struggling to make ends meet in South Central Los Angeles. Not like the grimy faced, out of control dreadlock-spotted afro mop-topped homeless man who begs outside our neighborhood Starbucks.

I see Salvation Army bell ringers trying to ring in the holiday spirit of giving outside the local grocery store and hesitate to drop even a penny in their festive colored metal buckets. Every cent counts right now right here in my home with my family. All this holiday cheer and the last-minute gift rush give me a terminal case of the bah-humbugs.

This year, each of my children will receive one measly gift from their parents, which really should be more than enough when you look at the overcrowded toy shelf in their equally overstocked playroom brimming with action figures and Leapster-brand everything that they never even play with. Consider also that they will receive lots of loot from their grandparents, aunts and uncles. Somehow I think receiving less as more is pretty cool, even if they hate me now and only fully understand when they are older.

I'll spare you further (over)exposure to my rejection of Christmas as commercialism. Think charity instead.

Maybe this year I'll show my children how to help others truly "in need." Perhaps teaching them "service" and "charity"by example will give us some much needed perspective on our own SAHM, single-income in SoCal situation, which embodies plenty of non-material wealth to be thankful for. As my 5-year-old son always tells me, "Mommy, we're rich with love." (Cheesy, I know, but very touching coming from my 5- going on 30 eldest son.)

My father often missed holidays at home because he was serving hot meals at the local homeless shelter. Though he never asked me to accompany him, I always understood and respected his choice to give to others on Thanksgiving and sometimes Christmas. I still wish I could have been a part of his selfless service.

THE LAME CASE OF THE ACCIDENTAL THIEF
BTW, I got busy chit-chatting with a mom from my sons' preschool at the check-out this morning and accidentally "stole" a pack of Size 5 Huggies in all the catching-up conversation. They were on the lowest section of the cart, beneath my wired children, who bounced like Mexican jumping beans around the cart when the cashier informed me of my total. She had to repeat herself three times.

In all the hubub I ignored the patient cashier and hastily shoved a $20.00 bill in her direction. I didn't bother to check the change she gave me back or whether or not she included the diapers on the bill. I couldn't understand why the total was so small ... that is until I was miles and miles down the road from the store, heading in a hurry to Cheeks' preschool and next to Pigtail's pediatrician. I'll have to pay for the accidentally "lifted" diapers after picking up both of my sons from preschool. Just another mom-brain moment. Sheesh.

YOUR TURN? DO SHARE.
Have you ever not been able to buy something you really needed because you were so strapped (or pathetically unskilled with personal finances)? Have you ever accidentally "lifted" an item from a store? If yes, what did you do about it? Did you ever return to the store and pay for the accidentally pilfered item? Can you afford Christmas in the commercial sense this year? If you are going to volunteer at a local charity for the holidays, what will you do and who will you help?

This is your brain. This is your brain on too many Domestic Slackstress questions. Just try being my kids.

Ps. I met a nice journalist mom in the sick room at the pediatrician's office today and shared my blog address with her. I had hoped to write something intelligent and influential for her to mull upon her first visit. Today's rant-like entry seems a rough introduction to my blog.