Account Handled By Mom Quotes

Nikhilananda’s birthday. Maybe we’d Morris dance, naked, around the base of an old-growth California redwood, its branches lavishly festooned with the soiled hammocks and poop buckets of crunchy-granola tree sitters mentoring spotted owls in passive-resistance protest techniques. You get the picture. In place of Santa Claus, my mom and dad said Maya Angelou kept tabs on whether little children were naughty or nice. Dr. Angelou, they warned me, did her accounting on a long hemp scroll of names, and if I failed to turn my compost I’d be sent to bed with no algae. Me, I just wanted to know that someone wise and carbon neutral—Dr. Maya or Shirley Chisholm or Sean Penn—was paying attention. But none of that was really Christmas. And none of that Earth First! baloney helps out once you’re dead and you discover that the snake-handling,

Mom,” I said, “do you know where the family money is?” I thought it would be an easy question. After all, my father was a successful financial consultant and stockbroker who taught investment classes three nights a week. My mother had to be up to speed on the family finances. At first, however, she didn't reply. Then she squirmed slightly in her chair. “Of course I know where our money is,” she finally said. “Your father manages it.” “ But where is it? Do you know where he's got it invested?” “ Well, no, I don't. Your father handles all that.” “ But don't you have your own accounts, your own line of credit?” My mother laughed. “David,” she said, “what do I need a line of credit for? I have the best bank in the world—your father.