in my mind, this was a shorter post; however, it's sweet, so stick with it.

So lately I've been thinking if I had a dollar bill for all the things I've done, there'd be a mountain of money piled up to my chin. What's amazing about that thought is when I think it, the voice in my head sounds exactly like that of the amazing Annie Lennox as she's singing the Eurythmic's hit, Missionary Man.

(sidebar - Is there any other woman as impressively piped as Annie Lennox? Seriously. I mean, how can you argue with this? When I come back, if I come back, I want to come back as Annie Lennox. The number of times I've staged performances of Little Bird and Walking On Broken Glass - Dr. Gregory House, M.D., and sexy time John Malkovich, y'all! - in my living room surely qualifies me)

Anyway, in an amazing twist to this story, I do not, in fact, have a dollar bill for all the things I've done, but if I did, I would probably pay my Mom what I owe her, and perhaps Walgreens for all the Cover Girl foundation I lifted from their stores during my misbegotten youth. Typically, when I'm done doing all that needs done, what I have to show for it barely comes up to my ankles. In an attempt to at least hit my navel, my Tool Man and I are currently participating in financial guru Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University. So far, the only peace we've found is the time when Tool Man, having just completed our initial household budget, wiped the tears from his eyes, turned to me, and said, "Do you want the piece of bad news first or the piece of good news?" Without going into too much detail, suffice to say, both pieces weren't that great. Dave's told us that sometimes when money's tight and life is stressful, we're going to want to do things we shouldn't rather than go home and make ourselves another peanut butter sandwich and yell, "Come and get it!" to our kids when it's time for dinner.

That day came last week. After a few days of super crunchy - generic! - spread on discounted bread store slices, I'd had my fill. Because Tool Man on day two of several away for work (getting reimbursed for his fancy restaurant meals, I might add, although not bitterly, even though that is sometimes my style), the hour was late, and the kids, though not clamoring to eat, didn't try talking me down from the ledge when I hastily suggested we stop at McDonald's before making a run to Walgreens (where I didn't shoplift anything! huzzah!)(p.s. - I've not shoplifted in more than 20 years, nor do I feel the itch to do so)(I'll also assume there's a statute of limitations on this matter, should lawyers be reading this)(please say yes).

En route, I bargained (because it's all about the money) with the boys, asking my Chicken McNugget-loving youngest if he would do me a solid and opt for the hamburger Happy Meal this go-round so I could then turn around and use the few cents I'd save on a Southwest salad with grilled chicken (the cost - robbery, the taste - delicious). Our neighborhood McDonald's is one that recently joined the coffeehouse ranks by adding a McCafe to the proceedings. While the boys, freed from the confines of peanut butter tongues stuck to the roofs of their mouths, lobbed questions at me like brightly colored beach balls floating over my head at a rock concert (just what would the ramifications to the planet if dinosaurs were reanimated, people?), and I attempted to determine which part of the iceberg lettuce-laden portion of my salad constituted the menu's promise of mixed greens, I thought, "You know what? Tonight, and tonight only, I'm going to splurge and get a coffee drink." This disappointed the boys greatly, who thought perhaps sundaes would be the splurge item of choice. Sorry, suckas!

The menu board for the coffee selections featured pretty pictures of things that never seem to match up with what you buy, and left me a bit confused (it was late, remember? also, iceberg lettuce has zero nutritional value, so brain function was being zapped with each bite), so I asked the young man behind the counter if my desired iced mocha was a blended drink.

"What?" he asked.

"The iced mocha. Is it blended?" I responded.

"What?" he responded back.

"The ice mocha. Is it blended? In a blender?" I said, enhancing my query.

"What?" he responded back.

"Seriously?" I said.


"Huh?" he added.

We looked at each other. I may have raised an eyebrow.

"Lady, all the coffee drinks come out of a machine." he finally said.

"Now we're getting somewhere!" I said. "Is one of those machines a blender?"

"What?" he said.

"Please just give me a large iced mocha from a machine," I sighed.

Back at the table, I knew as soon as I took the first sip of my large iced mocha (FYI - not blended), somewhere, Dave Ramsey was surely shaking his head and saying he told me so. The machine where all of the McCafe drinks come from must not have the freshest of contents at 7:15 p.m., on Tuesday evenings, because my drink was bitter, forcing me to raise one fist to the sky and mutter something about vengeance for my lost money while my other fist wrapped around my fork and stabbed into my (admittedly) delicious Southwest salad with grilled chicken.

The boys continued with their questions (p.s. - it was decided the world would be in far more danger from the reanimation of dinosaurs than that of saber tooth tigers, btw), my youngest caught my eye as I griped my way through my coffee drink.

"What is that?" he asked.

"Look at the menu board right here beside us and tell me if you can guess which drink I bought," I said.

"It's not a hot chocolate, and it's not a late," he said.

"Nor is it a latte," I replied.

"I think you got an iced mooo cha," he said. Like a cow. Like a cow with a rap record. "What in the world is an iced moo cha?"

"An iced moo cha is not a blended drink, muchacho," I smiled.

Then this glorious Chicken McNugget-loving, hamburger Happy Meal eating instead boy of mine got up in the McDonald's and started dancing. Like an Egyptian. And while I don't have a mountain of money piled up to my chin, in that moment, while I smiled at him and kept quiet about the fact that he was dancing to Billy Joel's Moving Out (you should never argue with a crazy mind, mind, mind, mind, mind, mind...), I felt incredibly rich.