wikiHow

Some time ago, I noticed a link to the title "How to Balance Your Checkbook" at the bottom of iGoogle. This immediately grabbed my attention.

An aside... Not because I don't know how to balance my checkbook. If I've mastered one thing in my life, it's balancing my checkbook. Anyone who spends enough time around me knows that I'm fanatical about doing so, a point I'll attempt to explicate in just a moment.

So I clicked on the link and was pleasantly introduced to wikiHow, an online "How To" manual/wiki with a plethora of articles on topics ranging from "How to Pray" to "How to Grow Beans and Peas." What an awesome idea! (Not growing beans and peas, but the concept of putting all of this information in one place in this format, albeit some of it quite random and useless - depending on who's doing the reading and interpreting).

When I was in school, my eighth grade algebra teacher taught us how to balance a checkbook and complete a simple tax return form. At the time, I couldn't understand why we were breaking from the curriculum. As I got older I realized that she was doing us a favor by teaching us basic life skills through application. Ms. Wilson. Thank you. Those lessons have served me well, especially after getting divorced and having to manage my own finances without putting myself in the poor house by spending the same dollar twice (shoot, three times - hence, the reason I'm a fanatic about knowing what's in my bank account to the cent. There's nothing attractive about a 37 year old divorcee who sleeps under the bridge simply because she was too depressed or too ignorant to balance her checkbook or file her taxes properly.)

The next time you're sitting around your house and wonder to yourself how you're going to accept your Oscar or who gets to keep your dog Sam in the divorce, here's your source.

Respect to Brooklyn. Love to Scotland Neck. Peace to Atlanta.
BK

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