I have just decided, I’m not all that impressed with monks. Like most folks, there was a time when they had my utmost respect. Oooh they are so devout. Wow they are soooo pious. Ooooh look at their…robes.

Now I’m like, “Yeah. Whatever the f*ck ever.”

A few weeks ago I was talking to my wife about the state of our finances. “Wow, we’ve really been doing well with savings. If we keep this up, we should be in a really good place at the beginning of the year.” “Greeeaaat.” She said drolly. “Speaking of that, what is our budget for Christmas presents?” “Hold on, let me check here… Uh huh…” I said examining the spreadsheet on my laptop. I then reached into my pocket and pulled out seventeen dollars and fifty seven cents. The change clinked on the table. My wife’s mouth shifted into a wry grimace, turning one corner of her mouth down. “What?” I asked pleadingly. “That’s not realistic.” She said dryly. “Well what is realistic?” I asked. “Do you want to know what we spent last year?” “Yes.” I said. She told me the number and I followed it up with a bunch of, “What’s?!” a few, “Are you seriouses?”, and a string of “Goddammits!” “How did I not know this?” I asked. “You did. And you react the exact same way every year. The only difference is you’re doing it before Christmas this time.” I looked at the budget again and as it turned out, it wasn’t so bad. We would still be in a pretty good place at the beginning of the year.

Sweet!

Then my wife’s car went out. I consulted the budget nervously. “It’s okay.” I said to the budget, “We can still do the Christmas stuff and get the car fixed and we should be alright come New Year.”

The budget didn’t say anything. It just stared back at me blankly.

My wife called me fuming. “I’m so mad, I just want to shake your son til’ his little head rolls off!” She said. Apparently she had picked the children up from school. Like every other day she directed them to take off their coats, hang them up and then take their homework out of their bookbags. This obviously meant for my seven year old son to take off his coat, walk over to the wall socket and stick a paper clip in it.

So that’s what he did.

Luckily, he was not hurt, But as a result all of the sockets in the dining room were shorted. I came home to see the charred outlet. I went to lecture my son on the dangers of playing with outlets and how he could have died but I was too late. My wife had already given him that speech and he had already gone to his room and put himself under punishment.

“Good grief. So much for getting ahead.” I said to the budget. It looked back at me with a you’re-pretty-much-screwed, sort of look. That’s when it occurred to me. Monks aren’t all that spectacular. They’re just some cats who looked at their budgets and decided they wanted to be left the hell alone.

They ain’t slick.