On the Difficulty of Accounting
My cousin Anna was in town yesterday, and so I took her to downtown Denver to play some pool, which was fun enough. The problem is how to account for the expenditure. It’s not drinking, even though I’d a half bitter, since drinking wasn’t the point. It’s not eating, even though we’d some food, for the same reason. It’s not entertainment, even though I was entertained, since that is limited to my own entertainment and doesn’t include others’. It’s not skirtchasing, even though she’s a girl, since she’s my cousin. It’s not charity, since charity is giving to causes. It’s not a gift, since I was a benefactor. It wasn’t a household expense, since it wasn’t at home (otherwise it’d have been a good fit).
And those are the only expense accounts which come even close to fitting: it was neither academic expense, nor bad debt, nor sales commission, nor computer, nor insurance, nor medical, nor theft, nor transportation, nor anything really.
This is driving me crazy, to tell the truth. The best I can do is drop it into my personal account, but even that’s not very good, since personal accounts are supposed to cover things I do for myself, not for others. It’s a truly unclassifiable expense. Perhaps I should create a new category: Entertaining Family or something. But would it better fit under personal or household expenses?
