ACCOUNTANT BY DAY

Today when I came home from work the mail was waiting for me like always. This is because my boyfriend gets home before me and he always gets the mail and leaves it in front of my keyboard. This is because I am the responsible one who sorts it and decides what each piece of mail means. Usually the mail is from someone to whom we are legally obligated to pay money. If not, it is from someone asking me to sign up for a high interest credit card. Infrequently, I get mail addressed to the old lady who used to live in my house, mostly church and charity flyers. She was a generous old soul. But anyway, since most of my mail is either an invitation to sell myself into financial slavery or addressed to another person, I’m pretty accustomed to ripping up most of it as soon as I get it.

Today I got some mail for the old lady from the Paralyzed Veterans of America. I was about to throw it away until I noticed that it contained a free day planner. What kind of day planner? I wondered. After hesitating for about 2 seconds, I ripped open the envelope and looked at it. The planner came with a funny, flat little pen and had a Norman Rockwell picture of a boy crouched on a diving board, looking down. Below this, it said, “Paralyzed Veterans of America” in proud lettering.

Because I truly do like veterans and want to be supportive of them, I felt a little guilty about finding this humorous. What a boy on a diving board has to do with paralyzed veterans, I’m not sure. Unless they became paralyzed by diving into an empty pool, as the picture strongly implies! I felt bad for laughing at their day planner. So I’m going to donate some money to the PVA in the old lady’s name when I find my checkbook. Maybe I’ll leave my funny new day planner in a geocache somewhere!