Retail therapy

When Marshall died, he made sure I had a bit of money for "retail therapy."  He knew how much I liked to shop and he was trying to do everything he could to be sure I could make it.  I kept telling him to quit worrying about me and to do things that gave him pleasure and he said at that point it was giving him pleasure to try to take care of me.  Incredible.

Anyway, I have enjoyed my retail therapy thoroughly (THANK YOU, MARSHALL!) but that little pile of money is almost gone and it is time for me to stop.  It's not going to be easy (ha).  I am going to try to replace shopping with exercise and yoga.  Maybe I will finally even be motivated to start making jewelry again.

On Thursday a piece of mail came for Marshall.  It was from the Pueblo Municipal Court and it said he owed $34 for parking an unlicensed vehicle in Pueblo in 2010.  I knew that could not be true because he was an absolute stickler about taking care of those kinds of things.  So I called the court and the clerk told me it was a Mitsubishi and she gave me the license plate.  I told her we never owned such a vehicle and she basically said, "Our records show you did, so if you don't pay you are about to be sent to Collections."  So I called our wonderful Custer County Clerk in Westcliffe -- Marshall had gotten to know everyone in the courthouse in Westcliffe because he did everything in person and he loved to chit-chat.

The Custer County clerk is also named Marilyn.  So I spoke to Marilyn and she checked and called me back and said that plate was definitely not ever registered to Marshall.  So I called Pueblo back and told her what I had learned and she didn't believe me -- she repeated that this matter was going to go to Collection.  So I asked for a supervisor and got voicemail.  Left a detailed message.  The supervisor called me back at the end of the day and she said, "Oops, sorry, we made a mistake."  She didn't apologize, just said they made a mistake and I didn't owe anything.  Our government at work....

I felt pretty good, though, because this is the type of thing Marshall always handled and I did it!  I came very very close to just paying the $34 to get it over with, but I persevered.