spikebachman.com/blog

It’s expensive being poor

The Friday before we were to leave for our Thanksgiving vacation, my car broke down. Here’s a little background: We needed a larger family car, so after selling the cars we currently had and buying a used minivan, I had $1000 to spend on a car to get to/from work in.

Sometimes a fella can luck out and get by with a $1000 car. Heck, I’ve had a $75 dollar car that lasted me for a few years! But as it turns out, I haven’t been that lucky this time. The day after I got it, it broke down in one of our towns busiest intersections.

Tow bill, repair bill.

And a week later it broke down again. Towed it with my dad’s truck, bought a new battery.

Last week, breaking down again. Very cold 45 minute walk to work. And this time our civil servants had it towed to the tune of $150.

I haven’t heard anybody really discuss the true expenses that the poor among us face which the wealthy typically don’t have to deal with. Sure, we all have heard that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. But there are reasons for this that at once don’t seem so obvious and that don’t necessarily point to the poor person’s financial aptitude. (Or the wealthy person’s for that matter)

So, anyway, I’m committed to still trying to make it work without having to get into a car payment. And hope that I don’t get any poorer in the process.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!! No Ping-Pong Tomorrow !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Our family is SICK !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Save Yourselves !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted in Fun | No Comments »

Good news for people who love good news

I was listening to NPR this morning. What a downer! Enough already! I have officially hit maximum bad news overload.

So I turned the dial and found this country station. The fella was singing a song about all the simple GOOD things in life. Like a cold beer on a Friday night. Jeans that fit. The touch of a precious child, etc. I thought “Hey, I have all that stuff and it IS good!”

Not to get all preachy, but I think its healthy to really align your mind with what is going good in our lives and get a little perspective on things.

So lets all look at this picture of this happy puppy and try to be more like him.

I’m learning that contentment is achieved more by self-determination and striving for a right state-of-mind than it is a result of outside forces.

So thank you country song. And thank you puppy. Thanks for helping me to get my head on straight. I feel much better now.

Posted in Fun | 1 Comment »

Ping Pong. Yeah baby!

This Wednesday at our house. Let’s begin our wonderful winter past time! It’s going to be dark and cold - let ping pong brighten and warm your hearts. The games will start at 6:00.

Posted in Fun | No Comments »

“What’s she supposed to be?”

We all went to a Halloween event last night. My daughter has insisted on being Ursula from The Little Mermaid for over two weeks. So my mom was kind enough to make her a costume. The costume had eight black stockings filled with black trashbags - those were the tentacles. In addition, she had on a black leotard, black leggings, blacked-out hair and bright red lipstick. It was all very well intentioned and looked pretty good starting out. But things got “ugly” quick.

After riding a few rides, getting drunk on candy, and maybe a little tussled by all the activity. She wasn’t looking too good. Her lipstick was smeared all over her face. Her hair was all stringy. Her leggings had fallen down around her bare feet. Her tentacles were all tangled. And she had some dark circles under her eyes.

My wife and I were laughing pretty much non-stop seeing her in this condition. Our little Ursula looked a little more like a nasty street tramp. It was even funnier when the adults would ask in their nicest way “What’s she supposed to be?”

We all knew what she looked like. But I think they were relieved to hear Ursula.

Posted in Family | 1 Comment »

The fee for watching me eat a worm just went up!

I earned money for college by working at golf courses. Golf course workers are universally crazy and the nuttiest stuff goes down among the ‘crew’. I’ve worked at plenty of courses - so I should know. Anyway, one morning my car ran out of gas on my way in to work. So I needed some gas money to get home.

My scheme ended up being to charge a bunch of the fellas to watch me eat a worm. I can tell you that it tasted like slimey dirt with little crunchies in it. I “earned” $5.00 for the experience. Back then, that was enough to put close to a half-tank of gas in my car!

I was thinking about this the other day as I was putting gas in my SUV. “A $5 worm eating wouldn’t be quite worth it nowadays… I think I’d have to charge at least $10-$15 for it now!”

Man, you know things are messed up when you’ve got to charge $15 to eat a worm.

Posted in Fun | No Comments »

Man vs. boy

My Son’s scooter was stolen last week. Even though he didn’t seem too concerned, I was pretty determined to get the thing back. I rode around our area looking for it with no results. Then later the next day, as I was putting my surfboard up, I saw some kids riding by on it. These wern’t really kids. They were more like 14 or 15.

Anyway, I went running out to the front of my house and up to the “kid” riding it. “I’d like my scooter back!” I said and grabbed it from him. He told me he “found” it “over there” and pointed in a sweeping motion in some non-descript direction.

Not saying anything else, I took the scooter back to the house. Then after they’d walked a safe distance, the kid said “Thanks for letting me borrow your scooter.”

I resented this comment. But what was I going to do? Teach him a lesson?

There once was a time when I could have. If you pay attention to our older generations, you’ll notice that there is a definite difference in how they lived in relationship to others. More of a sense of responsibility to administer social discipline. If this had happened back in the day, I probably could have twisted the kids ear or roughed him up a little.

If I did that now, I’d be blogging from in jail.

Posted in Family | 1 Comment »

The random

Much mucho going on. I guess to start if off, I sold my beloved black German sports car! Bye, bye Audi. It was nice knowing you and speeding in you and feeling the warmth of your heated seats and listening to your high-fidelity six-disk CD changer.

My wife now has a very unique Honda Odyssey minivan. It’s a very one-of-a-kind silver color. It does some very exciting things like transport 7 people in perfect safety and comfort. Sigh.

Tonight is my daughter’s birthday party. She’s three. The party is princess themed and she fancys herself a princess. (I think she is at least) But this morning I wasn’t too stoked on princess. Because princess peed all over the couch! So instead of eating breakfast, I got to clean up princess pee.

For some reason she’s been coming downstairs in the middle of the night and sleeping on the couch. That’s how it happened. (Oh, and my wife didn’t feel like putting a pull-up on her - that too.)

Lastly, I know everybody is sick of hearing and talking about it, but what’s up with the economy? Jimmy at the surf shop told me that someone else told him that the 700 billion bailout is the equivilent of giving every citizen over 19 years old $300,000! Tell me that wouldn’t fix the economy.

“Hey Wall Street - Beat It!!” “Now where’s my $300,000?”

Posted in Fun | 1 Comment »

Frightening and/or funny

Every region has its share of weird town names. But North Carolina seems to heap on an extra helping. Plus, many of them are downright frightening. I live in the Cape Fear region of North Carolina. I go up to the Kill Devil Hills area to surf every spring. It’s past Nags Head.

On the corny side of things, there’s Bald Head Island south of me. Off of Bald head are the Frying Pan Shoals. Of course there’s Kitty Hawk - kinda cute. And I drive through Monkey Junction on my way into work every day.

And some names are just plain disgusting. Fuquay-Varina. The story goes they incorporated both the town of Fuquay and the town of Varina into one town. To me, that’s a perfect opportunity to choose a completely NEW name. One that doesn’t sound like a French curse word and a sex organ! I guess the townsfolk were either too proud of their Fuquay and Varina heritages to give the names up or simply uncreative. Seriously.

All said, I like the fact that our area names have some spice. Especially when it knocks some of the puffiness out of the fancy-pants neighborhoods that are in them. Honestly, how pretentious can you feel when you tell people to turn left at Monkey Junction?

Posted in Fun | No Comments »

Pew Pew Squirrel

Guess who’s back? The cousin of squirrel bastard that ate up my house! This time he’s in the attic vent on the OTHER side of my house. I guess the rotting squirrel carcass I left in the first has kept additional squirrels out of that one.

My father in law - who’s painting the vents this week said he heard something in there. I climbed the ladder with my hammer to investigate. Praise God I didn’t have a hammer-squirrel confrontation two stories up on a ladder. The squirrel was not present. There was plenty of squirrel fur stuck to the wet paint though.

He had to be close by.

I quickly fabricated a welded wire screen to block the vent and screwed it in tight. Then it occurred to me… What if he got in the vent while I was in the garage making the screen?

Hoping beyond hope, I grabbed my pellet gun and my 5-year-old and went into the attic. Please, oh please let there be a squirrel trapped in my attic vent.

Disappointment. No squirrel.

At 6:45 this morning my boy and I got the gun again and went looking for the squirrel. Still no sign of him. And thankfully, no sign of attempted forced entry (chew marks on my house). We’ll keep a vigilant eye open for that little jerk.

So squirrel, if you’re reading this, WATCH YOUR BACK!

Posted in Fun | No Comments »

The “Brittle Class”

Here it is folks - the coining of a new phrase. I made it up this morning on my way in to work and hereby claim to be the originator of the term ” Brittle Class”.

You have your Lower Class, Middle Class, and Upper Class. And now there’s the Brittle Class.

The Brittle Class is the new Middle Class. What defines the Brittle Class is the fragility of their social position. There is no longer any stability to the lifestyle the Middle Class once enjoyed. Every Middle Classer is now one illness, layoff, car repair, fuel price increase, or weather event away from becoming Lower Class.

The Brittle Class can not afford the traditional lifestyle of yesteryear’s Middle Class unless they do it on credit these days. Which only makes the slope down to Lower Class more slippery and steep.

The Brittle Class cannot take advantage of many of the Lower Class benefits offered by our government, such as reduced healthcare for their children, because they make $100 more than the maximum qualifying income level.

The Brittle Class is angry and frustrated and sitting here writing on his blog thinking of ways to move to Canada.

Please do you part to spread the concept of the Brittle Class so that I will get an interview on Nightline. Then I’ll write a book. Then maybe I can get my Middle Class back.

Posted in Fun | 1 Comment »