No, Mrs. Winkler, $10 Is Not Enough for the Yard Work

You know what, sweet little 87 year old Mrs. Winkler? I’m tired of just smiling and nodding when you ask if $10 is enough for the six hours I spent mowing, trimming, raking, and fertilizing your 2.5 acre yard. It won’t be enough until you get senile and start paying me four times a day. I charge $15 an hour, so actually you owe me $90. And no, I’m sorry, your chocolate chip cookies don’t make up for the difference. Although they may be the most delicious cookies I’ve ever tasted or will taste – if my taste buds could reach some kind of tasty climax, I have no doubt that they would – I’m afraid that your cookies aren’t accepted as legal tender in the United States of America, or probably most non third world countries where food isn’t so scarce that it has actually become money. I’m sure in such countries your cookies would be worth millions, but unfortunately we don’t reside in Ethiopia, so I’m going to have to ask for the difference in American dollars. I’ll even accept your Medicare or Social Security checks. I’m not picky, as long as it is money and not baked goods.

Don’t give me that sob story about how little money you have. You live alone in a house that your husband probably built with his bare hands, what kind of bills do you have? Oh, here’s an idea: why don’t you sell a few of those creepy Ukrainian porcelain dolls you have? You know, the ones that sit in the parlor and stare at me through the window as I work in the yard? You have about 200 of them, I’m sure you could spare a few. Those things are nothing but vessels of raw satanic Ukrainian energy.

Now that I think of it, there’s no way you’re short on cash. Every time I watch you open up your wallet for that single $10 bill, I catch a glimpse of more cash than I’ve ever seen in my life. And it’s not just ones either, I swear I saw a $1000 bill in there. Just like every other old person I know, you carry more cash on you than a 7-11, as if The Second Depression could hit at any moment. Well it’s not gonna hit Mrs. Winkler, and even if it did, I think you could spare enough from your $12,000 cash stockpile to pay me a fare wage.

So, Mrs. Winkler, barring any kind of sudden economic implosion where the worth of the dollar plummets and is superseded by Chips Ahoy, can you please just give me my money?

This article is fictional, it’s not real, there is no Mrs. Winkler, it’s meant to be funny, etc etc etc, disclaimer, blah blah blah.