Chapter 6 - The First Financial Crisis
By Friday afternoon, the cracks in the Harrison household had turned into gaping chasms.
I was at my office desk, knee-deep in quarterly financial reports, when my phone buzzed against the blotter. Even though my family's numbers were blocked, my phone still logged blocked call attempts in its carrier history. In the span of six hours, nineteen blocked calls had pinged my device.
Unbeknownst to me, the real storm was hitting them at home.
According to a frantic email sent to the shared inbox—which I casually checked from my laptop during lunch—the household had encountered its second major crisis of the week.
The refrigerator, an ancient, groaning beast that had limped along for over a decade, finally gave up the ghost.
On Friday afternoon, right as Derek was trying to unpack his kids' frozen groceries, the compressor let out a loud, terminal click, followed by complete silence. The coils grew warm within minutes. A hundred and fifty dollars' worth of meat and produce sat melting on the kitchen counters.
In the past, this would have been a five-minute conversation. Mom would have texted me: “The fridge died, can you look online for a sale?”, and I would have spent my lunch break ordering a replacement unit and scheduling delivery for Saturday morning, charging it to my credit card.
This time, there was no safety net.
When Mom called local appliance stores, she discovered a harsh economic reality: decent refrigerators cost upward of twelve hundred dollars, delivery took three days, and cash-on-delivery was mandatory if there was no credit line attached.
Derek, attempting to assert his role as the "head of the household," reportedly tried to use his credit card, only to find it declined due to maxed-out limits.
Panic ensued.
The email thread in the shared inbox—which Derek had desperately revived in a last-ditch effort—was a masterclass in deflection and blame:
Derek: Mom, why didn’t you tell me the credit cards were maxed out? How are we supposed to feed the kids without a fridge?
Mom: I didn't know they were maxed out! We've been robbing Peter to pay Paul for months!
Derek: Well, where is Naomi? Can't you call her? She always had extra cash floating around!
Mom: I tried calling her fifty times! She blocked us!
May you like
Derek: Blocked us? Are you kidding me? Because of an argument about a bedroom? Call her at work!
I smiled quietly to myself, closed the tab, and went back to my spreadsheets. Let them sweat. Let them figure out what life looks like when the person they called a parasite actually stops carrying their financial weight.
