Money.
Found in a Metafilter
thread:
"Financial Phobia is a psycho-social syndrome which causes individuals to avoid cognitive engagement with the management of their personal finances. Sufferers experience negative emotions of anxiety, guilt, boredom, or feelings of lack of control when dealing with money matters, resulting in lack of vigilance -- and in the worst cases complete avoidance -- in this area."
.... I have, sitting next to me at my desk, a briefcase I can barely close any more, full of unopened bank statements, bills, and other artifacts of adult autonomy. Every few months, if I happen to have a little money, it dimly occurs to me that I should pay a bill or two before vital services to my home are shut off. I'll open the briefcase, stack the bills by kind (i.e., electric in one pile, phone in another, and so on), and sort them by stamp-cancellation date. I open the most recent one and pay it; I throw the older ones away, still unopened, and put everything else back in the briefcase.
It's a system, I suppose. It breaks down every now and then, mind you. One time, my electricity and phone service were both shut off on the same day. In the middle of a dead-cold winter. I had to go to a pay phone to ask retcon and treebyleaf to put me up somewhere with heat for the night.
Oh, I also frequently get statements from investment services my parents set me up with when I was a kid. I open these every now and then, squint at their arcana for a while uncomprehendingly, then they go in the briefcase. Or possibly somewhere in my filing cabinet. I forget.
I'm neither proud nor ashamed of all this; it's just my life, that's all.
"Financial Phobia is a psycho-social syndrome which causes individuals to avoid cognitive engagement with the management of their personal finances. Sufferers experience negative emotions of anxiety, guilt, boredom, or feelings of lack of control when dealing with money matters, resulting in lack of vigilance -- and in the worst cases complete avoidance -- in this area."
.... I have, sitting next to me at my desk, a briefcase I can barely close any more, full of unopened bank statements, bills, and other artifacts of adult autonomy. Every few months, if I happen to have a little money, it dimly occurs to me that I should pay a bill or two before vital services to my home are shut off. I'll open the briefcase, stack the bills by kind (i.e., electric in one pile, phone in another, and so on), and sort them by stamp-cancellation date. I open the most recent one and pay it; I throw the older ones away, still unopened, and put everything else back in the briefcase.
It's a system, I suppose. It breaks down every now and then, mind you. One time, my electricity and phone service were both shut off on the same day. In the middle of a dead-cold winter. I had to go to a pay phone to ask retcon and treebyleaf to put me up somewhere with heat for the night.
Oh, I also frequently get statements from investment services my parents set me up with when I was a kid. I open these every now and then, squint at their arcana for a while uncomprehendingly, then they go in the briefcase. Or possibly somewhere in my filing cabinet. I forget.
I'm neither proud nor ashamed of all this; it's just my life, that's all.