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Getaclewis

I'm a ghostwriter and book editor - there are a lot of amazing and inspirational stories that deserve and need to be told... so I help shape and polish the writing first!

I'm a mom of two teenagers and the wife of an amazing man and, at heart, a loner who doesn't like to be alone. Some days, I want to jump on the bed and laugh joyously and, other times, I can barely suppress the temptation to crawl under the bed and hide from the world. Bi-polar? Nope... just a girl!...

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Manners from heaven

C’mon… like I’m gonna say NO?

You’re not gonna believe this – I’m sure it must be a glitch or something – but, each time I go to use my debit card at the grocery store, a little message on the card reader kicks up. Get this… it asks me… even as I’m owing it money… DO I WANT SOME CASH BACK??

Are you KIDDING me???

I’m trying to watch what I spend, really I am, but when it offers funds for the mere taking, visions of that empty slot in my purse where I like for money to rest flash through my mind.

Hey, as I matter of fact, I DO want some cash back!

That’s not all! These machines are so accommodating that they actually begin to spew forth options for just how much payola I can request. $20? $40? $60? $80? $100???

What is this, Vegas or something??

The last time I nearly had $100 in my pocket, I was a college sophomore walking to my car from the dog track during Spring Break. Don’t get me wrong – my comfort zone veers far from gambling and that is precisely the reason that I won some money that evening. Aggravated by my friends’ insistence that we place a bet, I finally picked the LEAST LIKELY, most heavily scorned canine on the ticket for my $2 dance with fate.

I was determined to lose. (Oh the lengths to which I’ve been known to go in order to prove a point!)

Instead, my ship sailed in and I won a whole $80! I well recall, though two decades have passed, that feeling of equal parts euphoria and paranoia that escorted me back to my vehicle. With that kind of winnings in my hot little pocket, I was plenty certain that I’d be mugged before I could insert my key into the door. (Those were well before the days of remote control key clickers – waaaay before!) Looking furtively over my shoulder, I wrenched my key into the ignition and zoomed away before I permitted myself to breathe.

I held my breath in much the same way each time my roommate’s dad would tug out his wallet before leaving us. Ever the concerned father, his parting words were always, “Do you girls need money?”

::deep breaths here::

WAS HE CUHRAAAZY? Of COURSE we needed money. We were college students. Even if we didn’t need money, we needed money, right? There was just something about watching him count out bills and lay them in our palms that left us giddy and breathlessly smiling.

Who knew that Publix would someday get into the parenting game?

It is even improving my manners. Each time that little prompt surfaces…that ethereal WANT CASH BACK? promising manna like magic from above… my pulse quickens and, very quietly, ever so reverently, I whisper,

“Yes, please.”