Just when I think my parents are starting to get it, they go and do something monumentally stupid. Yesterday my dad told me that they'd just put in an air conditioner for $16,000, courtesy of a loan from the electric company. He was so excited to tell me all about their "great" interest rate.
You know what a "great" interest rate is, Dad? ZERO.
That's what I should have said. Unfortunately I'm only quippy after twelve hours of thinking about it. I did tell him that the definition of "not being able to afford it" was that you couldn't pay cash for it. He said, "Oh, I see," in a condescending tone that told me if he'd been standing next to me he would have patted me on the head.
The stupidest part of the whole thing is that they probably won't hardly use the thing. They live in the Seattle area. No one there needs an air conditioner. They've lived in the same house for over 20 years, and they never needed an air conditioner before. What kind of logic suggests that they would need one now, and need it so badly that they had to get a $16,000 loan to get it? It defies the imagination.
That puts their debt up in the neighborhood of $50,000, not counting the stuff they've co-signed for me and my sisters or the mortgages on their house and rental property. They're just completely in love with debt. I so SO do not understand it, and I'm to the point now where I think they may never learn.
The thing that really grates on me about this is that I've been sending them money by the truckload lately, and they're just taking it and throwing it down the drain at payments for crap they don't need. I know I owe them the money - it was never really mine to begin with, and they can do what they want with it - but it frustrates me to no end to know that I'm sending thousands of dollars to people who are going to piss it away. The next thing I know they'll decide that they "need" new car smell in their life.
Good thing Battlestar Galactica is on tonight. I need something to distract me.
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2 comments:
I feel your pain! My mom has bailed me out a few times over the years. Though I've paid her back and loaned (er... given, I guess since I never got any back) her many more hundreds as well. In the last 6 months, she has asked me to "borrow" more than $1000 on three separate occasions, due to stupid spending habits. Hope yours never get to that point.
Thanks momma! I hope mine never gets to that point either, but with the way things are going I think it may be inevitable. I'll have to cross that bridge if/when I come to it.
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