The Economy of Love

I tend to worry about finances and used to go overboard with the budgeting. My frugality was at its height when I was a single mother of two teens. For instance, we had no toaster. Why buy a toaster when you can broil the bread and save on counter space? When my daughter suggested we buy a printer, I told her that holding tracing paper up to the computer monitor and drawing what she would have printed was good for her hand/eye coordination and added that in my day, we chiseled our own copies onto slabs of rock. 

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Whenever money was tight, I would buy one stick of deodorant, one tube of toothpaste, one hairbrush, and so on to share between the kids' bathroom and mine. Mornings looked as though we'd all tumbled from train berths to the aisle below. The "aisle" was the hall outside the bathrooms. We'd dash in and out of the bathrooms and up and down the hall, passing, tossing, and flipping toiletries to one another. This, I told the kids, reinforced time management, sharing, and skills they could use if they ever ran away from home to join the circus.

Back then I was in love with a man I'll call "Luke" whose dog I'll call "Jackson." Jackson was a Great Pyrenees weighing about 150 pounds. At Luke's house one day, I became convinced that even something as sensitive as couples counseling can be achieved on the cheap with a smart and empathetic dog. 

 

Luke and I had been having an intense conversation. It wasn't a fight, but the issue was serious, and we were at odds. Luke was sitting in a dining room chair, and I sat, criss-cross applesauce, on the floor nearby. Luke suggested I leave so we could gain some perspective. Jackson, who'd been monitoring the situation, rose immediately, strolled over, and sat on my lap. He then laid his head on Luke's lap. It was as if he were saying, “Luke, I love you - Teece, SIT."

"I'll leave when you call Jackson off," I challenged. 

Luke said nothing, which was good because I didn't relish going home to two kids juggling toiletries and acting surly because we didn’t have a toaster or a printer. Then I asked, "Why do I get the rear end?"

Luke replied that I deserved the rear end, but he was smiling, and we were able to talk things through.

Jackson let me up and shot me a look, its message crystal clear: "Today I'm waving my fee. Next time bring plenty of kibble. And you did deserve the rear end.”

Paying a dog Jackson's size in kibble could get pricey. Then again, a dachshund could never have bridged that span on its own. Maybe it would have stacked up some pillows first. Then it could sit on my lap and still place its head on my lover’s.

That would have worked well, too.

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