Postponing penury: Operation Sugar Daddy

Postpone: v. to put off into the future

Penury: n. an oppressive lack of resources (as money) ; severe poverty

I have a predicament, no doubt shared by many single women in this time of economic hardship. I live in a house I love. It’s bigger than I need, and more expensive to maintain than I can afford (unless I want to spend my last years on the street).

Plus I’ve been single since 2001 and the solitary lifestyle is getting stale. So three years ago I decided what I needed was a sugar daddy… some brilliant, charming, loving, handy, and financially comfortable man with whom to share my life and my home.

Unfortunately, qualified men who were also eligible are scarcer than the dodo bird in my town. Especially since I disqualify Republicans and evangelicals.

So I foisted the task of finding me a new mate off on my son-in-law, who knows all sorts of fascinating people around the country.

Nada.  Plus I learned that he has several other female clients who have given him the same task – and they are younger than me.

Yesterday I was talking with my daughter about the sorry state of my finances, and she gave me a talking to:

“Mom,” she said, “Operation Sugar Daddy is entering into its fourth unsuccessful year. When are you going to come up with a different financial strategy?”

Hurt to the core by my daughter’s lack of trust, I started to write a P-word post on the subject, one with a hip name, like “Project Pwned,” to show how youthful I was. Unfortunately I was unsure of the correct usage of “pwned.”

I saw that my #2 son was on googletalk at the moment so I messaged him for illumination. And this is how that conversation went:

Me: Vocabulary help needed…   If Heather makes fun of me for falling down on my Operation Sugar Daddy Project, can I say the project was pwned?

#2 Son: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Actually… you’d say Heather pwned you.

Me: Oops. Glad I asked, because I’ve got P-word post in the offing about my abject failure in Operation Sugar Daddy department.

#2 Son: It’s about owning or dominating another person. Look it up here: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pwn

Me: So its done to a person not to a project or effort.

#2 Son: Well, kind of. If you were to have kicked ass at Operation SD, you would’ve “pwned” the project. As in, dominated it. A tough week at work could “pwn you”, meaning it defeated you.

Me: OK so I could be pwnd by Operation SD?

#2 Son: Well, not exactly. The project didn’t pwn you–it didn’t dominate you. It just never went anywhere. It was like that horse at the track that doesn’t move a muscle when the gates open, instead choosing to stand there, with a lost and slightly vacant look in its eyes… like a drunk who’s lost a bet.

Me: Jeez – Give me a break. Heather already pointed out the Plan had some flaws.

#2 Son: Exactly. The Plan had the fatal flaw of never actually existing.

I’ve got one more child to go to for sympathy.

Or maybe I ought to create a PLAN for Operation SD… ya think?