Love is an Idiot’s Investment.
by YBLalat

Last night, after all the trouble of collecting the needed information and receipts from my four roommates, I managed to finish my apartment’s 3-month household finance report. You know what that is; the statement that shows who owes who and how much, and who paid for this and that and how much, and the total of this and that spending.

Since I am the only one in the house who had a prior education in basic accounting, all the others asked me to do the household finance report and so I did. Furthermore, since the phone is billed to me and my name, the guys just thought that it would be best to let me keep track of the other bills too. And I have been doing this kind of report and ledger checking since the first day I arrived here in the US.

It took nearly a week to do the damn thing, not because it is such a hard task to do, but because I had to confirm a couple of made (but unclaimed) phone calls to Texas, Wisconsin and North Malaysia. The amount the three calls made were not that large (they were really less than a buck each) but in the name of financial justice and transparency of accounting, I just had to put the calculator on hold for a while, just in case someone would stand up and make claims on the made calls.

For the past three months, effective since early October and carried forward until last week’s Saturday, the total spending on the household groceries is roughly around US$1500. This includes cable bills, chicken and meat, groceries (e.g. vegetables, sauces, salt, sugar, etc.), rice and spaghetti and electricity. Water, gas and heat bills are not charged, courtesy of the generous building management. From that amount, nearly US$560 is spent on chicken and meat alone, bought by Pyan from the halal market.

Just imagine that much of chicken and meat, all are to satiate the massive appetite of five young, healthy university students. For breakfast, we eat three pieces of sausages each dipped in the thickest pasta sauce. Then, for lunch, two whole chicken legs are served with two additions of rice per plate. For dinner, we eat fried noodles with chunks of meat and mushrooms, each eating two servings the size of the biggest bowl you could find in a kitchen. My roommates and I consume more meat and chicken per month than the army of Nepal in a whole year! (This is not a valid fact. Don’t use it in your thesis paper.)

You think that that is the whack of the entire whack? Wait till you hear about the phone bills, man. The phone bills are the bomb. You know how my roommates are in terms of using the phone to call their beloved girlfriends, right? And how they hang on to the phones no matter what time of the day it is? Well, for the past three months alone, it totaled to a staggering new record of US$430.67! In case you are a dyslexic for long digits, let me repeat that again to you: Four hundred sombreros, man! Four hundred shebang! Four and zero and zero. All are in US dollars, man. All are down the drain, flushed into oblivion, for the sheer pleasure of hearing the moan and shush of your favorite crack whore. The money the hardworking people of your country busted their asses for, day and night, rain and shine, and you spent it all on one single girl, who may or may not let you romp her wet in the sack one day.

And don’t talk to me about that being an investment. Investment, my ass! This is pure bull crap. Love is an idiot's investment.