{"id":2208,"date":"2016-07-17T23:52:14","date_gmt":"2016-07-17T23:52:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/blog\/?p=2208"},"modified":"2016-07-18T08:29:43","modified_gmt":"2016-07-18T08:29:43","slug":"beware-of-little-expenses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/blog\/?p=2208","title":{"rendered":"Beware of little expenses"},"content":{"rendered":"
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“Beware of little expenses. A small leak will sink a great ship.”<\/em><\/h5>\n
Benjamin Franklin<\/strong><\/h6>\n
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Click on any image to go to this month’s gallery for more\/bigger\/better ones<\/a><\/h6>\n

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But, oh god, life has been nothing but expense of late.<\/p>\n

First our clothes dryer gave up the ghost. I had the back off it, and rummaged around with a screwdriver, but to no avail. \u201cSod it, we live in bloody Australia, we\u2019ll just use the washing line.\u201d<\/em> \u00a0Ermmm..<\/em> no we won\u2019t, it\u2019s winter here.<\/p>\n

Then the kettle blew up, blowing all the fuses. No way can we live without a kettle, so we bought a new one.<\/p>\n

Then the food processor blew up. Well not so much \u201cblew up,\u201d<\/em> as “had a rather bad reaction to Lee-Anne putting a wooden spoon in it while it was still running.”<\/em> We decided we couldn\u2019t live without a food processor, so we bought a new one.<\/p>\n

Then our washing machine blew up. I took that apart too, and removed 15 hair clips, two clothes pegs, a small ball, and $14. 55 in change from the filter. \u201cThat\u2019ll fix it,\u201d<\/em> I optimistically opined. No it didn\u2019t. So we called Warren, our favourite little washing machine repairman out, at great expense obvs. \u00a0He took it apart, and informed me that; \u201cWhen the filter had been clogged it had\u00a0overheated\u00a0the electrics.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0Or to put it another way, \u201cIt\u2019s fucked.\u201d <\/em>He\u00a0then\u00a0charged us a mint for that opinion.<\/p>\n

We spent a week or two doing our washing and drying at Mary’s. The thought of Mary\u2019s invisible ledger being filled with even more of our debt to her, meant that one weekend we found ourselves\u00a0down the industrial estate buying a new washing machine. We didn\u2019t bother with a new dryer.<\/p>\n

Then I got a pain in my side.\u00a0 It got so bad I couldn\u2019t sleep, and was on painkillers, I hate taking painkillers. I went for a massage at Foot and Thai<\/a> \u00a0($85.00) which cured it for a while, but then it came back with a vengeance.<\/p>\n

So I went to see my GP. She gave me a form for a blood test, and charged me $70.00. I went and had the blood test, they charged me $180.00. I went back to see the GP to get the results, she told me there was something up with my kidneys, gave me a form for an ultrasound, and charged me $70.00. I went for the ultrasound, they charged me $220.00. I went back to see my GP for the results. She told me I had a kidney stone, gave me a form for a MRI scan, a referral to a urologist, and charged me $70.00. I went for the MRI scan, they charged me $550.00. I went back to see my GP, she told me the kidney stone had gone, said I was a walking miracle, and charged me $70.00.<\/p>\n

Total cost of this way of finding out there’s sweet FA wrong with me? $1,315.00.<\/p>\n

So thank your lucky stars you have the NHS, (unless you’re one of my American chums that is.)<\/p>\n

(To this day I still believe it was the old wives cure of drinking lots of acidic drinks, in my case pure lemon juice, which got rid of the stone.)<\/p>\n

But then I got a cricked neck. I went to see our chiropracto<\/a>r this time, as Foot and Thai crack your back but not your neck. Dorothy cracked my back, then got hold of my neck.<\/p>\n

Imagine if you will<\/em>, Motorhead\u2019s PA system at full volume. Imagine someone doing a castanet solo through it. That\u2019s what my neck sounded like. Dorothy charged me $80.00 and told me to come back the next week so she could do it all over again.<\/p>\n

Getting home from work one night, I got out of the car and opened the garage door. I drove in and parked. Coming out of the garage I noticed something on the floor that looked like my Iphone. Only much wider and flatter. So I bought a new phone<\/a>, one with a bloody big screen and 10 x the capabilities I would want or use. (More on this later.)<\/p>\n

Then I reversed into someone’s car. Our insurance company are dealing with that one, but we do have $850.00 excess, and I\u2019ve lost my fucking no claims.<\/p>\n

So all in all we\u2019re skint, spare 10p for a cuppa tea guv?<\/p>\n

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L-A as you may know is a relatively high ranking civil servant, with a hugely responsible job, (which is slowly driving her potty.) Luckily some light relief comes every now and again when her\u00a0\u00a0office do things for charity.<\/p>\n

Which is why a couple of weeks back you’d have found her going into work dressed like this.<\/p>\n

\"pirate<\/a>

That’s my bloody tankard she’s pinched there!!<\/p><\/div>\n

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\"pirate<\/a><\/p>\n

All in a good cause though, they raised a healthy sum for\u00a0Give Me 5 For Kids<\/a><\/p>\n

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Now I know what they see in me!<\/p>\n

Interesting. When I went for the ultrasound and MRI scans for that back pain problem, while at the reception I was asked; “Would you like to view your results at online?”<\/em> Being a nosy bugger I snapped up the chance. So I got a registration form, and logged in when I got back home. I’d not come across this idea before, is it now common practice? Of course all the deeply worrying looking images and text meant fuck all to me, but it was fun to see inside me, (I\u2019m dead pretty on the inside.)<\/p>\n

It must give Dr Google, (the bane of my life,) plenty of work!!<\/p>\n

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One night at work, bored shitless, and praying the emergency phone didn\u2019t go off, I was doing my usual stunt of cruising \u00a0google maps again. I found this place;\u00a0168C High St, Egham TW20 9HP, United Kingdom<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s an Oxfam shop in Egham, and is really important in \u201cmy story\u201d<\/em>. When Alan Harness and I worked at Thorpe Park in Chertsey<\/a>*, long long long ago, when we were both penniless students, on my day off I used to walk\u00a0into Egham and buy second hand books.<\/p>\n

I bought three books in this shop which changed my reading habits forever.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Hound of the Baskervilles\u201d by Arthur Conan Doyle<\/a><\/h5>\n
\u201cThe Spy who came in from the Cold\u201d by John le \u2018Carre<\/a><\/h5>\n
\u201cThe service of all the dead,\u201d by Colin Dexter<\/a>.<\/h5>\n
*I’ve got a huge range of tales from that time, of being a professional pirate for a summer, of running the Long Walk <\/a>while training for a marathon, of being insulted by Bob Todd<\/a>\u00a0and insulting Dennis Waterman<\/a>, and many, many, more. But I won’t bore you with them, unless you ask nicely that is!<\/h5>\n

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As I said earlier, we\u2019re in winter here. The overnight temperatures have been down to -5 degrees, \u00a0and we\u2019ve had the first snows. I did take our boys out for a walk in the snow\u00a0after one fall, as they’d never seen snow before. They found it very amusing. Amusing until they got a cold cock each, then they weren’t so keen.<\/p>\n

\"SNOD&G\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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Well the farce and farrago which are Aussie elections came and went with no change of government.<\/p>\n

\"Jpeg\"<\/a>

The queue!<\/p><\/div>\n

We did our patriotic duty and voted.<\/p>\n

\"Jpeg\"<\/a>

Mary and L-A vote<\/p><\/div>\n

Not that we had much choice, they fine you here for not voting<\/a>. Inevitability I voted for all the silly parties as my first choices as we have a “preferential voting” <\/a>system here.<\/p>\n

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My voting sheet<\/p><\/div>\n

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Yes I did rank the “Sex Party” <\/a>as number one choice. They are actually on the ball politically. (fnaaarrr…<\/em>)<\/p>\n

“The Sex Party is the political party for progressive Australians. We campaign on Marriage Equality, Euthanasia, Drug Law Reform and more.”<\/em><\/h5>\n

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When I’m at work \u00a0I park on-street, a 15 minute walk from our office. I do this mainly as I’m too fucking mean to pay the $9.00 daily parking rate outside the office. Walking to get the car one night, \u00a0I was listening to an old CD of mine, (\u201cBlood\u201d by This Mortal Coil<\/a>, if you must know,) which I’d ripped and put on my new phone. The new phone has 32 gig of memory, but I added another 64 gig too that. Do you know how much music, photo and book storage that is?*<\/p>\n