Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Said No One, Ever.

   "Good job on liquidating your currency collection, dude."

TOG once collected unusual currency. Specifically, he collected star bills which is almost as boring as it sounds, trust me. Anyway, it’s now time to liquidate the collection and after cataloging it – something that he never, needless to say…

So, after spending a couple of lovely days inside with Excel, entering serial numbers and series dates, denominations and stuff, I tell TOG it’s time for him to review the spreadsheets and the books of notes and fill in the blank columns for amount paid and estimated value.

TOG:  Why? I mean I dunno, I can’t remember, I’m sick, blah blah….

Me:  Because it would be swell for me to have a vague idea of the value before I hand over the books to a complete stranger for appraisal.

WISIMH:  Oh yeah, and because it’s time for you to lift a finger to do something to get some money to paint the dilapidated house so I can sell it to support us, you lazy slug.

TOG:  Ok, but I need my star bills book. It was on the room divider (which is now my desk).

Which means I’m responsible for finding the book, a small old paperback reference book that was stored on some shelf he was responsible for packing up before he moved but which, needless to say…

So, after another day spent looking around the house unsuccessfully for the book, and then patiently reminding him that I’m not his mother or his goddamned secretary, he said he’d order another copy from Amazon.

And he did. And it arrived. In case you can't read the subtitle: "The sensational novel about a small-town girl who writes a fabulous bestseller and suddenly finds herself surrounded by money… and men." 

Instead of filling in here What I Said In My Head when this book arrived, which needless to say was pretty choice, I’ll just leave it at this:  Worthless douche.

I think I'll take it to the appraiser when I go with the currency, just to, you know, show him I know all about star money. Besides, it's a first (apparently only) edition, printed in 1950. The epigram is hilarious: "It is you who are discussed here." (Horace: Epistles I, 18, 84). So it's a pretty high-class literature as well as being a sensational novel about me. Wonder what it's worth?