One of my coworkers (I’ll call her Georgia) is driving me insane. I’m trying to keep my mouth shut because I only have to work with her for another week, but I don’t know if I can do it. The longer I work with her, the more it becomes apparent that she is never going to grow up.
Georgia and her husband have a ton of debt. As in $30,000 on credit cards, 2 mortgages, 2 car payments, and a bunch of medical bills because Georgia is always convincing herself she has a horrible disease. (She does. It’s called spendaholism.) At first I thought they just had too many bills but I found out the truth this week.
About a month ago, Georgia’s sister Lulu got an eviction notice from campus housing because she’s no longer a student. I’m not really sure why Lulu didn’t see this coming, but apparently she was shocked to learn that you can’t just live in an apartment on a college campus forever. Georgia decided to let Lulu move into her house, and Georgia and her husband are moving into their other house, which has been empty for the past year.
On Tuesday Georgia asked me to ride with her to Walmart to pick up some things she needed for the move. We’re walking through the store when her husband calls - Georgia says, “Yes, I’m using the Walmart card. That’s why we came here. No, I’m pretty sure there’s money left on it.” Then she proceeds to go through the store picking out a bunch of storage containers, not to store things, but to move them from one house to the other. I mean, she even picked out one to move her bedding.
“Couldn’t you just use a box or a garbage bag?” I asked.
“Ew, then my bedding might get dirty.”
“But couldn’t you wash it? What will you do with the container afterward?”
“Duh! Put it up until we move again!”
Um, okay. Wow. By the time we get to the register, we are pushing two carts containing a million storage containers, a $40 Paula Deen sauce pan (“It matches my kitchen and I really need one with this cool handle even though I have five other sauce pans!”), DVDs, towels, and a bunch of random kitchen items. Georgia’s total is over $300, and when she swipes her Walmart card, it’s declined.
So she pulls out a Target Visa. Declined. A Chase card. Declined. Her debit card. Declined. This went on for like ten minutes.
We keep removing storage containers from the total until the Walmart card will swipe. Now, I would be horribly embarrassed, but Georgia seemed to be pretty used to this. Actually I was embarrassed and it wasn’t even my stuff.
As we drove back to my car, Georgia made a comment about how her recent trip to Florida must have cost more than she thought. She giggled a little bit. And I’m sitting there with my mouth hanging open because it never occurred to me that she was using credit cards to finance a week-long vacation in which they flew to Florida, stayed in a huge condo, and shopped all week. I guess I should have known.
Yesterday Georgia wanted all of us to go to Olive Garden for lunch for her birthday. She started calling the numbers on the backs of her credit cards, only to find that she didn’t have enough available credit to use any of them. She actually asked if one of us would buy her lunch. I tried to say, nicely, “You know, you live here in town. You could just run home and grab something, and we’ll all eat the lunches we brought.” And she looked at me like I had three heads. She ended up going to Olive Garden with her husband, who must have scrounged up a different credit card.
It. Makes. My. Head. Hurt.
When I look at Georgia, I see the way I probably would have been right now if I hadn’t made some changes in my life. And I’m soooo thankful that I’m no longer that person. She is bankrupting herself to keep up some ridiculous standard of living that she thinks will bring her happiness. And honestly, she’s one of the most miserable people I know.
There’s more to life, people. Sure, she has a lot of stuff, but she has to stress herself half to death trying to pay for it all. I hope my readers are smarter than that.
