Purim Costumes

The boys want to dress up all together this year. When they told me that it made me feel warm and fuzzy inside. They love each other that much that they want to do something together without me having to bang heads to make it happen. Aw how sweet. Yeah. The feeling didn’t last long at all.

What is their idea? They told me a spoof on Goldilocks and the 3 bears. Ok, I say, what’s your spoof? Well, ok Ima, “Gedaliah and the three beers”. Apparently I need to buy 3 cases of different Canadian beers, so they can use the boxes and empty cans as their costume. Purim is in 3 weeks, and that means having to drink through three two-fours of beer. That’s 72 cans of beer. I love my kids, I adore them to distraction. But apparently I don’t love them enough because I am not willing to get rip roaringly drunk for the next 3 weeks. Would any of you be willing to make the sacrifice?

I shall send them to look for beer boxes behind the SAQ if they are that desperate.

Is there an elf in there?

My refrigerator is once again full of food, ready to cook for Shabbat, and to keep the boychik’s tummies filled for the next few days. Seriously, there is no more room in there for anything. I feel fortunate and blessed (and tired and broke).

So if the fridge is FULL, tell me why it is that each and every one of my four boys will come home from school, tell me about their day, and within the course of one conversation will have opened and closed the fridge seventeen and a half times. Then they will go over to the pantry, well stocked and overflowing, open that door eleventeen times. Then they will go back to the fridge, ask what’s for supper and when (it is always at 6 pm in this house. Rarely changes. But they still have to ask) and then they complain there is nothing to eat. Just to make sure of this, they have to open the fridge one more time.

Sometimes I put out a tray of carrots and celery and cut up cucumber with chummus to keep them going until all are home and supper is on the table. But that still doesn’t stop them opening and closing that fridge. What do they think? That the contents will change in between looks? That all of a sudden it will be filled with soda and barely-nutritious snacks? That if they open it real fast they will catch the fridge elf drinking beer sitting with his feet propped up on the margarine?

Why do they do this?

Cooties

My mother (a born and bred Brit, like me) asked me to explain what cooties are. Help! Do only North American children have them, or can British and European kids have them too? If I do not have them, how can I get them? If I do have them, how do I get rid of them? Please help us out here.

How aware of your money are you?

I recently needed to pick up a prescription for the KoD at the pharmacy. With health insurance covering most of it, there was to be just a smaller amount to pay. Seeing as the beginning of the year had just been and gone, he had told me that his initial deductible for the year had been charged the last time.

The pharmacist handed over the meds, and charged me more than I had expected. Now, you have to realize something. I have no clue about KoD’s health insurance, don’t even know what company. Once I live here and am on it, better be sure I will. I was running around, doing errands, helping him out, so he could get work done. I knew the pharmacist charged me too much but I didn’t feel like I knew enough to challenge him on it.

I came home, handed the bill to the KoD who of course said I had been charged too much. Apparently they had charged him the deductible a second time. He called the insurance company, they agreed there was a mistake, they called the pharmacy, I went back and they reimbursed me the difference and apologized.

My question is this: how many of you would even have been aware you were over charged, how many would have called the insurance company to clear it up, and how many of you might be aware that something hinky was going on but not be bothered to deal with it?

There was a time, years ago, that I would never have questioned the pharmacy on a bill. I would have assumed that seeing as they had computers and are all automated that they would be right every time. WRONG! I would probably have walked away having paid too much money and lost out. Am I right in assuming many of you would too? Someone even told me that they don’t even look at the bill when picking stuff up from the pharmacy.

Be aware, people!!!