Wages Paradox and the deep disturbing comfort of a blankie

I returned from a year in the States in the Spring to a job which I really like working in, with someone who is endlessly entertaining/smart and which pays well. Happy days. Loads of extra lolly to ease me back in to lovely life on the Liffey I thought.

Fatally, I had forgotten the Wages Paradox: The more you earn, the less you seem to have to spend.

Constantly and confusingly broke over the last few months, I made the mistake of going through all my finances on Tuesday when the gas and electricity bills popped through the letterbox. Distressing. Actually, to be accurate, acutely distressing. May not be going out again until the end of October.

So, staring penury courageously and unflinchingly in the eye, I've decided to get rid of the cards and sit in watching endless TV and eating cheap food. Nothing new then.

Here's the thing. Sinead and Joanne have just got a new client: Blankie and they offered me one to ease the pain and suffering of my new found impoverishment. This miracle thing is kind of like a half duvet which you use on the couch. Mine is brown and duck egg blue which is perfect on the brown leather nest of a couch. Knowing my natural bent towards indolence, they were going to anyway, but in the circumstances, it was particularly apt.

So lovely was this last night that I didn't want to go to bed after all the good programmes were over. I didn't want to get up to get myself more tea (and a mug of tea and telly was a winning combination before the blankie. I may just have to move the kettle and paraphernalia to the sitting room). I sat under it until 3am reading because it was too damn comfortable to move.

I suspect that this is what it feels like to be going out with a guy who just wants to sit in all the time feeding you cake. While it undoubtedly feels wonderful, ultimately, you end up being a prisoner of this luxury, afraid to move out of the zone. I may never voluntarily leave the apartment again. Really. It feels so good the church should know about it.

No. Wait. Is this early onset spinsterhood? Am I just one short stumble away from house socks with grips, hair on my chin/out of my nose and a couple of cats?

Damn it Prince Charming, you are well overdue. Rescue me and my blankie. There's room enough for two under there.

Bafflingly still impoverished

Evidently Ireland has over 33,000 millionaires. Taking it that at least half of these are men and at least half of those again are single and rounding down to an easy figure, you would think that with 7,500 of them running around I could spot one.

Humph.