Shortly after getting married, my husband and I knew we were going to need help.
A lot of help.
Facing my massive student loan debt and my husband’s maxed out credit cards from his single junior-grade lieutenant days, we decided to try a budget first. We sat down one night at our Montgomery Ward’s kitchen table and came up with our own debt reduction plan.
It worked, and within a couple years, we got rid of frivolous debt and started saving money. We were in control.
But then, something happened that turned our simple life plan on its end and threatened to ruin us financially — we had a baby.
Nothing spells financial panic like looking into the eyes of your newborn.
Before the baby, we dreamed that our savings would go toward Caribbean getaways and self-indulgent automobile purchases. We had no idea that the “fun” in our “fun money” would be sucked dry like milk from a bottle, and we would soon be scrambling to save money just to give the little rugrat a fighting chance in the world.
Experiencing our first child and the resulting financial panic attack, we immediately called for help.
A few weeks later, a man in a suit arrived at our door, and we thought he was ready to sort out our money situation and tell us exactly what we needed to do to avoid certain disaster. But our new financial planner had other ideas.
Instead of getting down to brass tacks, he sat at our table (still the one from Montgomery Wards) and asked us a canned series of rhetorical questions from a script in his faux leather-bound three-ring binder.
“Do you want financial security for your family?”
“Would it make you proud to be able to send your kids to college?
“Would you like to retire with enough money to pay your bills and live a comfortable life?”
As he rattled off the absurd rehearsed questions, my husband and I glanced sideways at each other. We knew that with each cautious “Yes” we were leading him through a flow chart that would necessarily end in us forking over a bunch of money so this guy could earn a commission. Although we were both disappointed that the man we thought would be our financial savior turned out to be a cheesy salesman, we couldn’t help but see the humor in the situation.
We both silently answered his silly inquiries in our heads ÔÇô Financial security? Hell no, we are plotting another Nick Perry Triple Six Fix on the Daily Lottery so we are set! College tuition? Nah, we’re just shootin’ for junior to get his GED and support us with his online poker winnings. Retirement? Isn’t that what Social Security and Medicare are for? Let the government worry about it!
After the painful presentation, we led Mr. Cheeseball out and politely waved toodaloo. As the door clicked shut, my husband and I doubled over with pent up laughter. The rest of the night was spent asking ridiculous rhetorical questions.
“Is it your dream to have edible food for tonight’s dinner?”
“Do you enjoy the feeling of good dental hygiene after brushing?”
“Is it your ambition to have hot coffee in the morning?”
A couple years later we tried again. Arriving at the office of a new financial consultant, we were relieved by his straightforward yet casual style. After very little small talk, he got right to it. No canned series of questions, no faux leather three ring binders, no glossy pie charts with pretty colors.
This short bald man knew his stuff, and we knew he was there to help us. He scrambled excitedly around his office like a chipmunk, gathering our financial nuts and building our little nest egg for the future.
At one point in the meeting, he was having some difficulty getting us to understand the various options for setting up college funds. Loving the challenge, he tried simple verbal descriptions, dry erase board drawings, and even hand motions. Seeing us still dazed, he scurried behind his desk to retrieve an explanatory graph that he had saved on his computer.
As his plump frame plopped into an oversized leather chair, he swung the monitor around so we could see it. In his excitement, he hurriedly tapped the keyboard to display his computer desktop files, and the screensaver photo of his wife and kids blinked off.
We could hardly believe our eyes. Suddenly, our sense of relief over finding a trustworthy financial manager was shattered. There on his computer screen was a full color picture of a prostitute lounging in skimpy lingerie, advertising “Virginia Beach After Dark Escort Service.”
After a split second of intense shock, our perverted little financial manager quickly swung the monitor out of our view, found the college fund chart file, and began nervously jabbering away about 529 plans as if we had not seen his dark secret.
Not knowing what else to do, we went along with his little charade. Paperwork complete, we said falsely cordial good-byes and headed for the parking lot.
Closing the doors of our 1992 Saturn, my husband and I looked at each other and exploded into repressed hysterical laughter, which continued uncontrollably the entire drive home. Every time we wiped the tears from our cheeks and tried to take a breath, one of us would remark, “We just gave that guy access to our life savings.” And the wheezing, tearful cackling would erupt all over again.
A couple months later, we got word that our sexually deviant financial planner was moving away, and we had to find someone new. We wondered, what kind of corrupt slimeball are we going to entrust with our money next?
[To be continued next week in “Part II: Hypothetically Speaking, Of Course.”]
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