Our single-earner income hasn’t yet kicked in, and so maybe my tune will soon change, but I’m planning for it to continue as is.
Last year a friendly substitute nearing the age of my dear mother–bless her heart–chatted with me during afternoon cafeteria duty. The conversation fell a bit flat, at the end, when she said, “My husband and I are looking to expand our business. Would you be interested in earning some supplemental income?”
“I earn enough,” I responded, remembering the super-cool book The Power of Enough. My duty promptly ended and I escaped from her friendliness.
I’ve seen this woman several times since then, most recently today. She was substituting down the hall. “I hear you have a new daughter,” she said. “I bet it’s hard to leave her at home and come to work every day.” I had tried to get the DVD player in her room to work (Someone please remind me why I was the one to do this…), but couldn’t, and so was loaning her the one
from my room. While I was fiddling with the wires, she wandered around her classroom. “Do you know any songs in Spanish?” she asked a student. (Later in the day, my colleague, who I’ll affectionately call “Old Fart,” said, “Did you meet that woman? I think if we spun her around five times she couldn’t find her way out of that room.”)
After school, she popped her head into my room to thank me for helping her out. “Where does your wife work?” she asked. I told her. “Will she get to stay home with the baby?”
“We’re looking at that option.”
“Well,” she said, “My husband and I are looking to expand our business. Would you be interested in earning some supplemental income?”
“We have enough,” I said.