Idiocy is expensive

A long time ago when Sameer first started to use Quicken, he created a category of spending called "Idiocy is expensive" to track expenses that were due to stupidity. Things like the fine you pay when you have to turn your cable back on because you forgot to pay it for months (not that that ever happened). We don't track things that way anymore, but if we did we would definitely be over budget on that account this week.

The first example of this was our attempt to donate the Honda to charity. You would think giving away a car would not cost money, but you would be wrong. First off, yes, we still had the Honda. After we bought the Prius, we were trying to decide what to do with the Honda (sell it, donate it, leave it on the side of the road far from our house...). While we procrastinated, it sat on the street in Palo Alto and we moved it occasionally. Apparently we did not move it often enough, because eventually the battery died. Then we had to figure out how do you donate a car that can't move (turns out not that difficult), and again we procrastinated. Finally, last weekend we got our act together and shipped the title away to Habitat for Humanity (the lucky recipient of the Honda) and waited for them to contact us to arrange pick-up. Apparently karma is not our friend because, no joke, the day after we finally mailed the title away the car got towed by the police. Apparently you cannot park your car on the street in Palo Alto for more than 72 hours (truth be told, it was probably closer to 72 days than 72 hours). So, we were then in a situation where we had to pay the police to give us a release form to give to the towing agency (whom we also had to pay, including the daily rate for storing the car) to get the car back that we were trying to give away. Ugh. Long story short, $300+ later the car is now off our hands. Good bye, Honda, the last evidence that remained that I have at least once been frugal. How ironic that you were so expensive to get rid of.

Today we added to our running total of stupidity expenses, although truth be told it is hard to blame us for this one. We rushed out of the house this morning to head for the mall, and when we finally made it home in the afternoon I walked into the living room to find the glass covering our gas fireplace completely shattered (rest assured, it is brand new and made of safety glass, so no little pieces of glass on the ground). Sameer and I were convinced that Sonia was incapable of doing this (no way she could be strong enough to shatter it, surely we would have heard something or seen something if she did it this morning before we left, etc., etc.). It has been cold (by California standards), so we were generating these elaborate theories of the flume being open and the warm air hitting the cold air and causing the glass to shatter...all very scientific, of course. Finally, on a whim, Sameer asked Sonia if something had hit the fireplace this morning, and she says "yes." Hmmm, suspicious, but not completely damning because she says "yes" to all questions she doesn't actually understand. So, I asked her to show me what hit the fireplace. Sure enough, she walks across the living room, picks up a red plastic hammer (part of a toy toolkit she has) and brings it to me. I felt like we were in some episode of CSI and we had just found the murder weapon. So busted. I asked Sonia to show me on the table what she had done, and she starts hammering away at the table like she is a master carpenter. At this point, all we could do was laugh, tell Sonia to never touch the fireplace again, and "misplace" the hammer after she went to bed. I can't even imagine what it's going to cost to replace the glass...I think that may be what Sameer and I are now getting each other for Christmas.

I guess this is just our way of doing our part to help the economy!