I just saw on Animal Planet that a snail can sleep for three years. Clearly, those are guys not in a hurry.

Like my husband. He likes his naps. Which means he’s not much of a home improvement kind of guy. We needed to have our front porch repaired last year and it didn’t look like old Rumplestiltkskin was going to do it.

So I called a carpenter and got his estimate.  $2200. That was big cash given other circumstances in our life. I called my cousins and friends from all over – in Warrior, Mountain Brook, Homewood, Hoover, Pleasant Grove, Argo – and they pretty much decided my best bet was in my Corolla. Not to sell it, but to get a car title loan at Car Title Loans in Tarrant.

It was easy, fast and I managed to get my sleeping husband to cover the payback on the loan. Most important, the porch looks great and no one’s going to get hurt stepping into a rotten step. It’s amazing what a woman can do while her husband sleeps.

I think we worry about the wrong things. For example, more people are killed by donkeys annually than are killed in plane crashes. And more people are killed by church picnic tuna salads (from salmonella poisoning) than shark attacks.

We also worry about money too much, and about how to solve problems. Certainly, we spend more than we should on things that don’t matter. Because every now and then, something will come up and slap you in the face to make you realize how pointless materials and perceptions are.

We ran into a money problem last year that really had me wondering how I would buy food that month, despite the beautiful home and cars and pool we have. It was a cash shortfall, based on a problem with one of our children. I looked at my husband and just said, “What are we going to do?” He didn’t know.

I talked to my sister in Atlanta and she told me she once borrowed $5000 against her Lexus when they had a problem.  Well, I went online and looked for car title loans, and sure enough I found Car Title Loans in Mountain Brook. I didn’t have to go anywhere – I just filled out the forms online in about 15 minutes, and got approval 15 minutes later, and the money the next day. We needed $4000.

I’d do that again, anytime necessary.  I hope it won’t happen for a long time, but it’s good to know it’s there as a backup.

Ten percent of the Russian government’s income comes from the sale of vodka. Which explains my brother’s wife he found on the Internet.

I swear, that woman came here from her country just to drink more. He was crazy to have married her after knowing her a month.  They would go into Birmingham and party, then come back to Hoover to sleep it off in my back bedroom. When they got married, I told them they’d have to get their own place.

Of course neither of them had much sense to save enough money for a security deposit on an apartment. I told them to go where I go when I’m short on cash, to Hoover Car Title Loans.  They could use the collateral on his Mitsubishi sports car, which he did. No way I was going to loan them the cash – I’d never see it again.

I don’t even let my kids go over to that rats nest of an apartment.