One Million Dollars and Seventy-Five Cents

That's how much it's going to cost to have the Cuckoo Clock fixed.

They called and gave the estimate to The Man.

Afterward, he gave me a squinty-eyed look, like Clint Eastwood in "Hang 'Em High,"
a look that said, "If that cuckoo clock were a dog, I'd have Ol' Bingo put down and
save myself a bundle."

I finally understood his sentiment yesterday at the dentist's office where we learned
that The Man has a bad tooth and the dentist wanted to know: Do you wanna pay for
a root canal AND crown, or shall I just yank it out?

Now, I was the one with the squinty eyes.

"How much is the root canal AND crown going to cost?" I asked.

"One million dollars and seventy-five cents," the dentist replied.

Well, you could have knocked me over with a feather! What a coincidence! Two
unexpected expenditures in two days and they both cost exactly the same!

It's a good thing money is no object. It's a good thing we keep winning power ball
lotteries. It's a good thing we never threw away those old $20 engraved metal
plates and printing press we found in the attic. It's a good thing we found that buried
Pirate's treasure chest in the backyard when we dug the grave for Ol' Bingo.

I'm starting a new National Committee called, "Save A Clock And Save His Tooth."
SACASHT, for short. Just send in $100 and you can be a member. We'll even send
you a tote bag with the SACASHT logo embroidered on it.

I tell you. You have to have a keen and stalwart mind to keep ahead of the game.

You also have to have a good sense of what your necessities are. What do you
REALLY need and what can you do without.

Which reminds me of the time The Man and I went out shopping for a new refrigerator.
Our old one was dripping water and making ice where it shouldn't. So, out we went to
the shopping center, fists full of dollars.

Two hours later we came home and lugged in our newest acquisition: a $350.00 set
of wind chimes. Not some silly, baby wind chimes, but big, heavy, long, high-tech,
deafening wind chimes which were, we found out, too loud to hang outside in our yard
because the reverberating clanging kept half the neighborhood awake and deafened
the rodent population. So, we had to hang them inside and the only time they rang
was when one of us slipped in the water that continued to drip out of the old refrigerator,
stumbled and fell into them, at which time we'd scare the beegeebees out of ourselves
and our old cat Whitey.

And, so the moral of the story is: It's a crazy world out there and there's no sense in
worrying about cents, so don't let some jangly thing like a clock or a tooth or a wind
chime trip you up. But, refrigerators are another story and it's okay to just shoot 'em
and and bury 'em in the back yard...right over there...next to Ol' Bingo.