Dana lives in Seattle, and Tracie lives in Germany. We are businesswomen, writers and humorists. We write about life, dating, and today's modern women.
My Daddy the Landlord…and How to Pay a Bill
You know since Dani posted that hilarious story yesterday about our dad and our dogs, I thought I’d share another daddy thought/philosophy/take on things. I swear we are not making these stories up.
For our family being in the real estate industry, the days between the first and fifth of the month was rent collection time. With well over 400 hundred apartments and houses combined, this was serious business. If a tenant could not pay his or her rent, daddy would send someone around to pick them up, bring them to the office whereupon they would be given instruction on how and where they were to begin working their rent off. There was always a yard or stove to clean or a wall to paint so this was not a problem. Most times this worked out. But in all honesty, you can’t really have high expectations for someone to come and work off their rent if they’re lackadaisical about paying their rent anyway—but that’s another story.
Anyway, we girls would all be so relieved when the actual cash and or checks would come through so we could get to work on paying the bills.
Well, while we scrambled to meet our financial obligations, our dad continuously reinvested without any heed to our financial situation. On any given day, no, make that everyday, he’d be remodeling, renovating and releasing his creative genius in any number of his various projects with really no concern about the bills. He knew that we fully supported him, but his attitude still amazed us. He just didn’t seem to worry about it. He carried on and did his thing as if things were as they should be. And in some odd way, this quieted my angst.
These days, as I sit alone in the peace and quiet of my apartment and realize that the only commotion going on in here is the one arising from this damn stack of divorce attorney bills, taxes, credit cards and statements I’d like to just set fire to because they are akin to stink in the sense that they just don’t go away, I channel our dad.
I think about what he would tell me as I sat behind the desk in our office scratching my head trying to figure out how to rob Peter to pay Paul.
“Sugar,” he would say as he headed out the office door, “Don’t you worry your pretty little head about it. As long as we owe ‘em, they’ll never be broke.”
And he was serious. And you know what else? He was right. Still today, the very thought, quiets my angst.
And in that sense, I am fully aware and so thankful that so many years later, my father is still taking care of his little girl.
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