Visa or Mastercard?

Flashback to 2001. I have notes from then, but I may have to estimate the actual quotes. This has the added benefit of smoothing and polishing what I say so that I sound better than I really did...

Friday March 2, 2001
My wife finally gets a new job after being unemployed. But instead of being happy, she comes home after that first day and tells me that she wants to work only part time (even though she was hired to be full-time). She wants to go back and ask her new employer if she can stay home on some days, not working.

We were struggling for a while there and the thought that she might get fired again actually raises my body temperature a few degrees, but I try to sound sympathetic.

"Let's see how it goes," I tell her. "Besides, we really need the money, with a new baby on the way and all."

Then she explains that she has a plan. She has found a way to eliminate her bills. She wants me to pay off her BMW car loan with my credit card using the Astronomical Cash Advance rate.

"But Honey," I say as I try to steer away from an argument or deathmatch. "The cash advance rate is actually higher than your current rate. AND, I need to put the new baby furniture on that card."

"No problem," she says. "You can put it all on there, and then we won't have to worry about the car payment."

Hmm. I suppose we wouldn't.

I had to explain that both the new nursery and the BMW won't fit on my little Visa card. I suggest that we either 1.) Sell the car; 2.) move to a smaller house; or 3.) work full time.

"Do we like living here enough to work full time?" I ask.

Well, of course none of those options are acceptable to her, but for the first time, I refuse to give in. I just don't trust her financial strategy. After all, that kind of strategy had led to her declaring bankruptcy before we were married.

She's angry. Very angry. She tells me (and I wrote this down), "You're trying to screw me! Why are these bills always yours and mine?" --meaning, Why don't you pay my car loan too?


"But I already pay all the house bills. All of them." I offer to share the bills instead. She doesn't bite.

Finally she storms out of the bedroom and I slam the door after her. Only I slam it too hard. I slam it so hard that it gets stuck. The latch actually wedges itself past the jamb so that there is no way I can open it from inside the bedroom. I'm trapped.

Well, that pisses me off because I'm supposed to meet Al at the boat show. Now I have to figure out how to get myself out of my own bedroom.

I work on the door for a while with no luck. I try to remember Al's phone number so I can call him, but can't remember. Finally, the only way out is obvious. The Window. But from the second floor there is no easy way down.


I sift through the closet for escape tools. I find a karate belt and an extension cord. Thinking that I am MacGyver and also that I am much lighter than a grown man, I fashion an escape rope out of the belt and cord and tie it to the bed. I toss the end out of the window and ever so carefully crawl out of the second floor window.

Once outside gravity takes over and instead of gracefully repelling down onto the back patio, I slip quickly down the extension cord and onto the cement ripping the skin off my hand and injuring both knees.

But even though I was bleeding and limping, I was out. And she knew I was out because she had been sitting at the table facing the window on the first floor when her angry husband tumbled past on his way to the ground. She had what was probably a very satisfying view of it all.

Anyway, I met up with Al and made some excuse about my injuries. Luckily he had a tissue in his car that I used as a bandage.


I never did put her car on my credit card. But she did change to part-time anyway, and I just paid all the other bills and eventually paid her credit cards off and then paid her for her half of the house.

Yeah, well. The scars on my hands eventually faded.