Financial Woes

This economy stinks let's face it. People are out of work, so very few people are spending money, causing businesses to hurt. Without a cash flow in the economy, this country is looking pretty sad. Americans are having a hard time making ends meet. Who is making out in all of this? The banks. Yup, the businesses crying for bailouts are making money on other people's hardships.
After learning about how banks make money, I am absolutely flabbergasted that they would have the gall to charge overdraft fees to customers. All of the money put into bank accounts is essentially a loan to the bank. They can use your money to invest in things, earn interest, and make a ton of money. Now to add to that income, each time you overdraw your account, they charge you somewhere in between $20 and $35. How much sense does this honestly make?
Clearly those individuals who typically overdraw their accounts do not have the money to be throwing away hundreds of dollars on overdraft fees each month. Yet banks still take that money, further overdrawing accounts. I can't see how they need those funds, nor how they justify charging their customers these fees.
If people realized that they have choices in the matter of banking I don't think they would tolerate how banks treat (rather, mistreat) them. And if people were leaving banks because of this mistreatment, banks wouldn't feel nearly as entitled to charge erroneous fees as they do now.
Choices, people, choices. This is one of the fundamental things that the American culture is founded on. Use it to your advantage in banking.

Is It Yours?

This title comes courtesy of a woman I ran into at the grocery store this afternoon. I would like to thank her not only for the title of tonight's post, but also for reminding me that my sweet, beautiful daughter looks almost nothing like me.
It's funny how two people can make a little person that looks so different from both of them; genetics is a funny thing like that. Gregor Mendel was all sorts of confused when he crossed his pea plants to find recessive traits, and we still are today when you cross two people with similar traits to produce a baby with totally different set of traits.
Take, for example, my daughter. She has a lovely olive complexion, straight dark hair, and grayish blue eyes. She looks like a Greek baby that has sat in the sun for a while. But that is not the case. Instead, she comes from two pasty white parents with dark curly hair and hazel eyes. I can see Beardface's features in her face, but not mine. My husband reassures me that yes, she does look like me, too. I suspected he was lying and had my suspicions confirmed today while trying to pick up my week's worth of fruit.
I was minding my own business in the produce isle, hanging with the BabyGirl, when all of the elderly women in the store flocked to my daughter. "Oh how cute!"they shouted. "She's adorable!" they exclaimed. Most asked how old she was and commented on how alert she is for her age. But one woman. She looked at BabyGirl, then at me and asked "Is it yours?"
Now, this question has so many things wrong with it, but I'll begin with the most obvious. My daughter is a person, not an object or pet, and as a person, she should be referred to with a pronoun. If one were to have any doubts about the gender of a person they are speaking of, they need only ask. But could this woman have any doubts? I should hope not. BabyGirl was sporting a pink hair bow that matched her white onesie trimmed in pink with a purple butterfly in the center. Now really, ma'am. A butterfly on the onesie is a dead giveaway that this is a little girl, so please use the proper pronoun.
Also, I'm carrying this baby around on my shoulder, kissing her cheeks every so often and looking at her lovingly. Is she mine?? No, I just take strange babies to the grocery store and kiss them. ::sigh::
I realize I should be more forgiving and nicer about her mistake. But man. Makes you feel real good when someone can't tell your own baby is yours.
It doesn't matter, though. I know she's mine. She has just always looked familiar. As if I've met her in some other place, some other time. Here is a picture of the two of us on vacation. She's rocking her daddy's over shirt because it was windy. I love this shot. (Props to Beardface, the photographer.)