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It’s amazing how much work I got done today, considering all the time I spent on the phone. And I’m not talking about the calls I got after quittin’ time. They don’t even count against my on-the-clock hours. They’re actually me reward to myself for getting through the day.
As I was leaving the house for my morning errands, the phone rang. I’d already put the answering machine on, but I made a split-second decision and picked up. It was the Boss’s ex-wife, asking about her money. It always starts out about money, but then we get talking about Himself. She complains, then I complain. She grouses about his current girlfriend, and I keep still. I’m not getting into that muddle, because I like both of them.
She was married to him for twenty-odd years. (Well, I assume they were odd.) I’ve been with him (but not living with him, thank goodness) for nearly nineteen years. So it’s not as if we don’t have notes to compare. It doesn’t actually do either of us any good, because there’s nothing we can do about it. But sometimes I get some insight from her, even advice once in a while. Today, for example, she told me to ask him for a raise. She seems to think he’s vulnerable just now.
The money she was asking about this time wasn’t her regular alimony check. That’s due by the tenth of the month, although the Boss never pays on time. Sometimes she has to ask him for it, and sometimes I take the initiative to remind him. When he writes the check, he mails it to me and I mail it to her bank. I think this circuitous arrangement started because she was away from home so often (they have umpteen grandchildren, strewn up and down the California coastline). Nowadays she’s home more, but we still do things the old way. It doesn’t matter to me; it’s just one more item on my to-do list, one more thing to scratch off.
What she was looking for this time was a check to reimburse her for two of the grandkids’ birthday presents. He can’t be bothered to shop, of course. So she does the legwork and he pays half. I don’t think he gets to many of these birthday parties, but he always gets thank-you notes. I know this because he sends them to me to file. (No kidding. I have files for each his daughters, and everything related goes into them. When I get around to doing the filing, that is.)
By the time I was finished talking with the ex, the window of opportunity had closed on a nice, leisurely errand run. So I had to dash out to the post office and dart over to the bank, and then run people down with a shopping cart so I could pick up a few groceries and get back to work. That put me behind for the rest of the day, so it’s kind of miraculous that I got so much work done. But I did. |
