All my imagination

The doctor says it's not thrush, just food particles stuck on my tonsils. I'm skeptical, but I figure it isn't bothering me now, so I'll wait and see if it recurs next month for a third time and if it does, ask someone else. I would probably have had to switch doctors soon anyway. (And someone closer to either work or home would be useful.) On the up side, I got to work this morning earlier than I do most mornings.

And Bev has asked me to be her son's back-up guardian. I told her I was honored. She said, "He'll come fully loaded...with our life insurance and all." And immediately I was picturing myself as The Evil Aunt, spending the poor boy's inheritance on fancy cars and diamond-studded high-heeled shoes. Then, more realistically, picturing myself walking onto the bank saying "Yes, I have boatloads of money that belong to my little nephew here and I want to put some away for college and some for medical bills--" and the teller saying "You're going to steal his money and neglect him until he reaches adulthood, aren't you? And look at his poor crippled hands! You're going to use all his money on champagne and cabana boys, aren't you, you monster? And I bet you killed his parents, too." And then I would offer the teller a cruise on my new yacht with her own cabana boy attendant and she would, on her own initiative, deposit the money solely in my name with a pittance--say, thirty-seven cents, plus interest--for Gabe. Some people are so easily bought.

I have no idea where all this came from, except perhaps too many melancholy kid's books and bad made-for-TV movies. However, one thing is clear: I am, in at least some ways, indeed an Evil Aunt.

(For the record, my reply to Bev was "It wouldn't matter if he didn't." She then went on to tell me that she thinks it's a much better idea to pay off her house loan at 5% than save up for Gabe's college fund at 3%, but I'm fairly sure she was joking. If paying $100 extra takes 8 years off a 30-year loan, he'll still be graduating from college the year the house is paid off. $100 a month for 18 years at 3% interest is...um, I don't know how often banks compound interest. But enough for a few quarters' worth of college.)