Accounting for Dummies

Mini Dog - a fast food restaurant in the far east that has stolen McDonalds branding in order to sell dog based junk food

So I speed read a book in a bookshop the other day about how feeling babies formula meant that their brains didn't develop properly (no worries there I breastfed) and also how feeding kids processed food meant they lost IQ points daily (shit shit shit), IQ points that seeped out of them like so much macaroni cheese coming out of their ears. Usually, like most laid back mothers I do a daily equation: if they eat a certain amount of processed food (ie chicken nuggets, mac and cheese, frozen pizza, that gets cancelled out by two pieces of fruit. If they eat more than a fun bag of M&Ms per day then that day is sanctioned as nutritionally null and void). Whether the book I read is a crock or not I don't know, but it had me hurriedly preparing a home made meal of braised pork in the crock pot: cabbage, pork chops, celery, cider, chicken stock etc. Might sound a bit weird but trust me its great. One problem is that even though I will have cooked a nutritionally sound meal the kids won't eat it or if they do they will pick out most of the veg and nibble on a bone. Still, I will have put my mind at ease that I have stopped them going daft.



Do you do these sorts of calculations? Like, for myself, if I eat one really bad meal for lunch like a hamburger and fries, that is totally cancelled out if I eat two apples for dinner. Its absolute bollocks of course, but don't you do it? The same goes for any debauchery I did before I was thirty: smoking, illegal substances, drinking and tanning myself dark brown...anything before thirty doesn't count and I get a free pass. The 'logic' goes that it was all too long ago and now my lungs have healed themselves etc. Its probably bollocks since drugs and Coppertone suntan lotion play havoc with your brain, but that's how I justify having had my munchies and eaten them.



Another calculation I do is say if I go and buy a pair of shoes on sale. They were $90 and now they are $30 so I get all excited because I figure I have saved $60. Apart from the fact they are too tight and I don't need them. And then I go and spend the money I have 'saved' on a manicure, pedicure and a lipstick and still somehow feel virtuous.

What kind of schizo calculations do you work out in your mind to wipe out your sins when you've been a bad bad boy (or girl)?