Wallowing

Just as an FYI, today's piece isn't a pick-me-up, peppy-funny piece. So read at your own risk. Normal broadcasting will return soon.
There is a quote in Say Anything...where Lloyd Dobler asks his sister in exasperation, "How hard is it to decide to be in a good mood, and then just just be in a good mood?" It's always been my belief that Lloyd (or Cameron Crowe) was right on point there. I think that people tend to wallow bit too much in their own self-pity. Long ago, I adopted Lloyd's statement as a personal philosophy.
This week, I've been guilty of a little wallowing. And it pisses me off, frankly. I have come across some kind of apt analogy of what it means to be an adult. Simply put, adulthood means you get to pay for a lot of things you can never afford. No matter how much you struggle, scrimp, or save, it will never be enough, every time you think you are getting ahead there will always be something, and the best you can really hope for is to stay afloat.
Two current specific cases in point:
1.) Approximately one and a half feet from our bed is our bathroom. It is the only one in the house. It consists of one toilet, one sink, and one shower. All of those components are within an arm's reach of one another. For the past four months, the shower has been covered with a plastic sheet because there is significant water damage to the wall board behind it. So the bathroom must be gutted and repaired.
We had someone come out and give us an estimate to fix the wallboard, put in a new shower/tub, change out the sink, and put down new laminate flooring.
$2,500.
Two.
Thousand.
Five hundred.
American.
Dollars.
2.) One of our cats, Wrigley has been limping/hobbling around for the past six weeks or so. Initially, we thought maybe he had taken a fall but after a few weeks observation, we decided he needed to be checked out. Our first visit to the vet took place a few weeks ago, wherein they confirmed that something was amiss (duh!) and that he would need to have an X-ray. Two weeks and two hundred dollars later, our vet has told us that he suspects a torn patella (the X-ray showed no bone damage but he was able to feel his kneecap move from side to side). In layman's terms, his kneecap is shredded and the only way to repair it is surgery. Yesterday, I called the orthopedic vet (who knew there such a profession?) to set-up a consultation (another hundred dollars) and get an estimate on approximately how much this type of corrective surgery costs.
$2000.
Two.
Thousand.
American.
Dollars.
So when anyone is over at my house and asks me what I did this year, I'm going to point to the shower and my cat and I'll say, "Well, I paid $4500 dollars for that."
"For what?" they'll ask.
"My cat. And a shower."
That's all you can hope for in this life. Your cat and a shower.