A friend told a funny story. Out of the blue her husband decided to control her spending. Apparently, he got bored in his old age. Or maybe senile dementia is coming. They had already managed to bring up their children, they had gone through a lot: they were out of work, in the nineties they worked hard. He had no thoughts then to control where the money was spent. But now he decided to check everything. He thinks that a lot is spent in the wrong and ill-conceived way. Not the way it should be spent. Plus, it turns out she’s a bad hostess. Can’t please him about anything. That’s how it happens, everything was fine before, and now she’s suddenly become a very bad wife. Scandals started for no reason. We’ve had it.
At first I thought he was making this weird joke. “How come you never have any money? Other people have everything, but not you! Why are we eating sausages? A good hostess would make cutlets!” She answers that yesterday there was only meat… Who wants to eat meat every day? He’s not going to work in the mine, he’s been at home for a long time. “So what if it was yesterday! I’m hungry today.” He doesn’t want to know that there’s plenty of other food without patties. I’ve had it with her, poor thing. Somehow she never thought about what kind of man he was before. It did not catch her eye that he was good or evil. They had lived together peacefully for years.
There had been no romance or tenderness, and no scandals or swearing. She realized only now that she had lived with a very nasty, grouchy, petty man. Apparently, he had always been like that, and she, because of her work and worries, had never paid attention. By old age it was as if he was off his rocker. She’s willing to compromise on anything. She offers him the whole family budget for a month on him and both his pensions and the whole household. It’s good that their pensions are almost the same. He will buy everything himself, pay for it, and write it down.
He would demonstrate how to spend it. He agreed, counting every penny. Before, he didn’t have much love for counting. Meat for lunch every day. Also fresh, bought at the market. How did he have enough money for that? Not until his next pension. He also didn’t pay his utilities, phone and Internet bill. There was nothing left for the cleaner either. There was no money left for summer vacation this month, and there was nothing left to buy sweets and gifts for his grandchildren.
Two pensions were not enough for medicine either! What to do without them now? In a word, well done husband, all things considered and calculated. He got angry, he realized that he could not cope. He said that he just did not have enough experience. But such a bad neighbor, as they called my friend, suddenly did not want to be good again. Why bother at her old age and for whom? My husband, it turns out, doesn’t appreciate anything! It was easier to stay bad than to report to her husband for every penny spent. How unpleasant that turned out to be!
