Sometimes we all have days seemingly sent overnight delivery from what has to be a place reminiscent of the fifth level of hell. Hot, sticky, emotionally draining days, where everyone seems to be giving you the finger, even though their hands are in their pockets. Days when you KNOW that the bubbly, slightly nervous new barista at Starbucks made you a crappy chai /intentionally/, just because she KNEW it was your day to experience a getting hit by the dodgeball–right in the face–type of day. For me, today was definitely one of those days. I felt like Alexander in Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. Except without the gum in my hair. And while these particularly unpleasant days are typically few and far between for me, this day felt doubly terrible, simply because I remained the only person within a planetary encompassing radius responsible for the horrible nature of my day.

Because sometimes, when it comes to finances, I am an idiot. When playing the part of financial nitwit I act like I don’t know how to subtract properly, as if I haven’t been taught finances by the most monetarily savvy woman on this earth, as if writing a check doesn’t mean the money has scampered away from my checking account.

Yes, it would appear that sometimes I like to play make-believe, and so I pretend that if I can still SEE the money resting comfortably in my checking account, well then, I ought to spend the money. Makes so much sense, right? Yeah, not really.

So today I confessed my recent overdraft sins to my mother. Why? Because she is AMAZING with the keeping and dispersing of funds. And I needed sound advice. And she lives two minutes away from me. And rather than yell, cuss, kick, or even “tsk tsk” me in her lovingly disapproving way–all of which would have been suitable responses to my recent monetary lunacy–my mother, a.k.a. The Queen of Finance, took me out to lunch.

Over freshly baked pizza we discussed my retardation with my debit card, and when I felt the I’m frustrated with myself tears gathering force, and threatening to soak the too hot to eat slice of veggie pizza sitting in front of me, The Queen stared into eyes that look strikingly like hers, and gave me the I am Mom, and I know everything look, and told me everything would be fine. And in her motherly magical way she bewitched me. And instantly I believed her. And as if all of that isn’t enough, she also makes a home-made stew so good as to warrant the creation of a new food group.