of the editorial page staff
published by the StarTribune
June 4, 1960
AFTER I'D been married long enough to know that two could live for about four times as much as one if they were careful, I turned over the family finances to my wife.
They say that women spend 75 per cent of the money anyway and who am I to buck such odds? As long as my cigarette and lunch needs are met and I have a credit card for gas and a few dimes for incidentals I'm content.
This is a base admission. Financially speaking, I'm typical of the drift toward matriarchy. But since milady can keep a check book straight and I can't, and is willing to clutter up her mind with when the utility bills must be paid to beat the discount date, I'm happy to let her. I'm busy enough keeping up with the cold war and Willie Mays' batting average, and dreaming up excuses for escaping the church picnic.
MY RELUCTANCE to do anything more about bills than provide the money has become such a fetish that it amounts to a moral principle. Consequently, when we go out to dine at a swank drugstore, I wander off to the magazine rack and let my wife pay the check.
This seems only right. It's the grocery money we're spending when we eat out and she's the grocery-fund keeper. Women have been seeking equal rights for years and I grant them the right to pick up the dinner tab when they're supposed to pay it. I prefer this to accepting money concealed in a napkin or handed to me under the table. I'm never certain that this subterfuge goes undetected, fear the scornful glances of the waiter, and hate to live a lie.
WHY DON'T I pay for the extracurricular feeds with my own money and get reimbursed later? Because I too often don't get reimbursed. My loss is the grocery fund's gain and before next pay day I am mooching cigarettes and borrowing lunch money.
I gave my sister-in-law a nasty turn a few years ago and have been low in her esteem since. She was visiting us for a few days and one evening insisted that we dine out as her guests. After we'd finished eating she pushed the check and the money over to me.
I pushed it back. "Pay it yourself," I said. "I never accept money from women. It's your money, your check and your party. I oppose artifice in all forms and it won't bolster my ego one bit to pay this bill with your ten bucks."
She was rocked. "Why," she gasped, "Sherwood would be embarrassed to tears if I paid for a meal. He'd rather die!" Sherwood is her husband.
"Well," I said, "Sherwood's not here and I'm not like him. He has pride and I have only a scrambled code of morality. If I pay the bill I do it with my own money, not yours" To my vast relief, she capitulated.
MY WIFE says my conduct is ridiculous and brands me as a tightwad. Maybe, but I prefer to think it brands me as a rich eccentric, a fellow so financially robust that he has no thought of money and can scorn appearances.
As long as she knows with complete certainty that I'm generous and out-giving, I tell my wife, why shouldn't she indulge my insistence that the person providing the dinner money pay the check--and thus keep the grocery fund honest?
Of course, I'm not really as stiff-necked as all this. We often do take off on wild flings, and I spend money without stint or thought of the morrow. This usually means meat substitutes for a couple of weeks afterward, but the fun is well worth it and the change invigorating.
And hot dishes really aren't so bad.
Copyright 2018 StarTribune. Republished here with the permission of the StarTribune. No further republication or redistribution is permitted without the express approval of the StarTribune.
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