That Hundred Dollar Dilemma

A version of this originally ran in The Virginian-Pilot on July 24, 1999.

When I was a kid - before we knew the word “staycation” - unfortunates who couldn't go away for vacation used to joke that they had spent their holidays in “Yardville.”

It sounded so much better than saying they'd just stayed home.

I was on vacation earlier this month. I spent it in Yardville.

Good thing, too, since all summer long I've been afflicted by what I call the Curse of Kerry's Wallet. Or my weekly Hundred Dollar Dilemma.

This has left me wondering, if the economy is so good that Alan Greenspan frets about it overheating, if unemployment is so low, productivity is so high and wages so strong - why am I so broke?

Am I the only one out there who sometimes thinks there is a cosmic conspiracy to remove every last dime from her grubby little mitts?

It's weird. Just as I think I'm about to actually make it to the next payday with enough left over for a pizza and a liter of Diet Coke, some guy with a somber expression on his face and grease under his nails appears, waving a bill at me.

I first experienced this run on my bank account in early June when our personal property tax and car insurance bills came due on the same day. An ugly coincidence, I thought. Surely not a sign of things to come.

A week later, when the first hot spell of summer hit, the air conditioner in my 9-year-old suburbo-box coughed and sputtered, nastily spewing out pieces of hot lint and stale air.

Eighty-eight dollars later I was awash in toxic Freons and feeling cool, albeit poor, again. I found a few coins in the ashtray and bought myself a cold drink to celebrate.

That was premature. A day or so later, I went to pick up my kids at the pool and was surprised to find them standing on the sidewalk with their towels.

”How did you guys know I was here”' I asked incredulously.

”We could hear your brakes squealing when you were about a mile away,” my daughter said, rolling her eyes. “It's embarrassing.”

”Yeah, the dog's even better than that,” my son chimed in. “She hears you coming about five minutes before your car's in in the driveway.”

Frankly, I had noticed it was getting harder and harder to actually stop the car when I stomped on the brakes, so I went back to see my new best friends at the service station.

Not only did my car need new front brakes, but the rear ones were down to the metal, too. Cha-ching. I can now stop on a dime and sneak up on the poodle, and all for just $320.

That was the week before I glanced into the back of our refrigerator only to spy a giant sheet of ice forming, not unlike the ones that used to accumulate on the walls of our old family Kelvinator. Whenever this would happen, my mother would do something she called “defrosting.” I had a nauseating feeling, however, that our modern fridge would require more than warm water and a sponge.

I was right. It needed a new evaporator. I had a suspicion I'd need one soon, too.

The good news was, the part was still under warranty. The bad news was that the labor was not. For a cool $448.45, men in coveralls simultaneously made the ice and my checkbook balance disappear.

No sooner was the refrigerator cooled than my car was heating up again. Seems all the new toxic Freon had leaked out through a faulty O-ring. Sorry about the ozone layer, folks, but without Freon, driving to work in a linen dress on a 100- degree day is guaranteed to leave you looking like you'd slept on a park bench.

The O-ring cost just $2.11. The new Freon and labor ran me a frosty $160.

Last night, I threw a load of wash in my dryer and about three hours later I noticed that the drum was still turning. I opened the door and found soggy clothes in a heap. The interior was cold.

I pounded on the lid in desperation and the heater seemed to snap back on. Wanna bet that the men in overalls will be paying me another a visit real soon?

One of my colleagues assured me that this isn't just my bad luck. This happens to everyone and simply proves his theory that mechanical devices can actually tell how much money you have in the bank.

”For example,” he said, “if your balance climbs to $1,200, something in your car or home will break, costing $1,193 to repair.”

That's not so bad, I guess. It leaves you $7 of walking-around money, about enough for a pleasant week in Yardville.