My Stock Has Risen

Everything's coming up roses here in Backroads. Not just my actual roses, the un-goat-eaten bush given to me by Hick several Mother's Days ago, perhaps the one after the three-dollar pink change purse debacle. I know I'm not this mother. But he is, after all, a father, the one who holds the three-dollar pink change purse strings for the offspring who would wish, with much prodding, to buy me a gift.

Yes, the rose bush is in full bloom, there's another announcement on the horizon, and I am now the $9.00 daughter! You heard me! I have risen from the ranks of $8.00 daughterdom to the lofty heights above. In fact, I don't mean to jinx myself, but I was almost the $10.00 daughter! Karma and Even Steven must have a bone to pick with me.

Here's how it went down. Friday was my mother's birthday. The Pony and I picked her up on the Walmart parking lot for a bill-paying excursion to a nearby town. What? You didn't think we'd go all the way to her house to pick her up, did you? Perhaps when I'm a $50.00 daughter. We had a red shiny gift bag chock full of birthday cards, two cans of beer nuts, a box of Crunch 'N' Munch, two bags of sweet-and-salty snack mix, two very ripe bananas, a week-old National Enquirer, a Globe, and a sparkly silver box with a grabber-machine necklace. Only the best for my mom!

Mom had stopped by my sister's house to inspect the grounds, and had driven through her bank to cash her check. I am not privy to which check, anything from retirement, my dad's retirement, a dividend, or some other old-people first-of-the-month check. All I know is that mom knows to the penny where her finances are socked away. So I doubt this was a very big check if she cashed the whole thing. She climbed into T-Hoe, oohed over her gift bag, which she preferred to dig into in private, and proceeded to profess that the bank had shorted her ten dollars.

It seems that mom decided that she was going to take the odd amount out of the bank envelope and put it in her billfold to spend all willy-nilly, throwing caution to the wind, it being payday, by cracky! The odd amount came to thirteen dollars and some change. While waiting for us on the parking lot, she opened the envelope. The change was there. The three ones were there. But the envelope contained nary a ten-dollar bill. Mom counted. She did not have an extra twenty. There was the round amount, three ones, and change. She called the bank. "I have been banking with you since 1972. We never had a single problem. I don't even count the money in the envelope before I drive away. But I just counted it, and I am ten dollars short. I counted several times. I could be wrong. I didn't look at the amount on the check, I just assumed it was the same as always. But there was no ten in my envelope, and I should have had thirteen dollars. No. I can't come in right now. I have other plans. Please check on it and leave me a message at home. I'm sorry if I misunderstood the check amount."

I felt bad for mom. To her, the principle of that ten dollars was a major fly in the ointment of her day. We continued to the bill-paying town. It has all manner of restaurants not found in Backroads proper. The Pony wanted the exotic Papa John's pizza to bring home for his lunch. Or to eat in the car, as he is wont to do. Genius had ordered us to pick up some Captain D's for his lunch. Mom wanted some Captain D's breadsticks. Hick had not responded to our text offering this cuisine to replace his anticipated bowling alley food. It was in line at Captain D's that Mom dug through her purse and pushed nine ones at me.

"Here. Let me help you pay for lunch."

"Mom, it's your birthday. I don't need your money. Hick got paid today. We're fine."

"No. Let me pay. I know it won't pay for everything. But it's for my breadsticks, and part for Genius's fish, and part for The Pony's pizza. This is all I have besides twenties. I was going to give you that ten. But the bank didn't give it to me."

"Really. You don't have to do that."

"I know it! I want to. Now take this."

"All right, Mom. Thank you." Who am I to deny my mother a wish on her birthday? That's what makes me the $9.00 daughter.

We dropped Mom off at her car later, and she headed to McDonald's for a Grilled Onion Cheddar Burger. Mom does not live by breadsticks alone. I told her we could all have dined on prime rib in a fancy-schmancy high-end eatery for the amount we spent on fast food that day. As we passed her bank on the way home, I told The Pony to call Genius for me. He was at Mom's house soaking up her high-speed internet. "Hey, did the bank call Grandma?"

"Not while I've been here. There's a message on her machine."

"Check it."

"The bank has her ten dollars. She can come get it, or they will deposit it in her account."

"Okay. I've gotta call her before she passes the bank." I called Mom, in line at McDonald's. "You can stop in to pick up your ten dollars, or they can put it in your account."

"Oh, I'll call them to put it in my account. I don't want to go in there. I'd be so embarrassed! Things like this really bother me."

"WHY? THEY made the mistake! They shorted you ten dollars!"

"Oh, I'm sure it was an accident. She was a young girl. Maybe she didn't know what she was doing."

"Okay. Just wanted you to know they had called, in case you wanted to stop in."

Keeping Mom abreast of her finances. Just one more service offered by the $9.00 daughter.