When Tattooed Dad and I fight it’s over either sex or money…the lack of either.

Money is a huge issue around our house. We’ve worked hard, and we’ve invested a lot of that into the house. It seems like any time we get under control things go wonky. In this case, it was both cars having fits, one right after the other.

Tattooed Dad’s shift linkage broke, and the first replacement part failed. The second one worked with only a small hack (since we bought the “generic” part and not the saturn part that was three times as expensive). Ultimately, it seems like we’ll need to cough up the money for the big ticket item.

My car, as you might know, is possessed. It appears, though, that we’re on the right track for a fix. After the first round of repairs and a rental car and a second trip to the shop because the first one didn’t solve the “I’m wet so I will not run” issue. The second trip included the mechanics drowning the car to recreate the circumstances that gave me the problem in the first place and MIRACLE! it worked. As near as they can tell, the MAP sensor, which controls the flow of air/fuel in the injectors. Hopefully, this *will* solve the problem.

So TD wrote a post about all of this as well and also about the ultra generous gift from his friend Alx.

Now my thought was that the money should be used to pay for the damn bills (or be socked away as a cushion). And yes, I know, it’s “found money” (or rather a whopping gift) and that maybe it should be used elsewhere. For me, at least, not having to freak out about getting the damn bills paid is HUGELY more important than pretty much any cool item that I might like to have.

TD, however, had a very different opinion. He went, without even mentioning he was thinking of doing it (and I’d asked, mind you), and bought a camera. This is not the super whoop-de-do camera that he’d like (or that I’d like for that matter) it’s a newer version of the one we have. I’m sure it was around $200.

That’s not, as you might imagine, my issue. It was buying something that we don’t “need” instead of dealing with the huge stack of crap we need to deal with.

So we fought, because TD sprung this on me right after we got back from getting the car from the shop for trial number two, and because I’m sure that we’re looking at yet another huge bill for the second repair. He said *I* didn’t need the camera.

When I said that I thought TD was disconnected from our situation (i.e. we’re financially tight and don’t have room for much outside of our budget) and he responded that he knew *exactly* what it was. He said it was a check from his friend given to him for use for “fun stuff”. I said fun for me was not worrying about the groceries, or the bills. I mentioned the money we owe for the cars, the tree work that has to be done, to various friends and family etc. He got heated, and so did I. He went on to say that “as long as we’re together, I’ll *never* buy anything for us again”. I told him he was being a drama queen and to drag in the drama llama for a show. He said he wasn’t being dramatic.

It got ugly.

He said that I “couldn’t see anybody’s point of view but my own” and that he couldn’t talk to me. He stomped out of the house and drove away.

It hurts me that he thinks that, even for a moment in the middle of an argument. I try very hard to see other POVs…I make a living seeing other people’s points of view. I hate that I’m forced to be the practical one, the banker, the accountant, the babysitter, the mommy, the care giver. I’m sure that I’ll get the fact that I spent $30 at the fiber festival tossed back at me, or that because I elected to rent a car for four days while mine was being fixed (rather than shuffle all of us around, or use his car and leave him stranded) and thereby racked up more bills will also be of note.

I’m so fucked. And not in a good way this time.