Shutdown

Photo by Rob Martin on Unsplash

Maybe I’m an idiot, but I look to Washington for leadership. To wit: I informed my wife that I will not vote for her 2026 household budget unless she concedes to my demands.

Christina didn’t appreciate my hardball tactics, so she retaliated with a vicious social media campaign. But a viral video of me wearing a sombrero and calling myself a “bad hombre” is actually an AI deepfake. I am, in fact, a good hombre, and I prefer baseball caps to sombreros.

But sombrero-gate, as the media has taken to calling it, is a sideshow. The real story is our household budget. Folks, it’s a mess. A few examples. Rather than fund our retirement accounts, Christina bought lottery tickets, saying “you can’t retire, if you don’t win.” Instead of paying our health insurance premiums, Christina commissioned a research report on the link between vaccines and poor financial decisions. When I asked her what we’d do if we got sick, she said that wouldn’t happen, as long as we avoided high-fructose corn syrup. Honestly, that would’ve been OK by me, but when I tried switching to Mexican Coca-Cola, which uses real sugar, Christina slapped a 10,000% tariff on foreign soda. Finally, she took out a second mortgage on our house to cover the walls, floor, and ceiling of her office with gold. Actual gold. It’s a little tacky.

Anyway, I had to do something. The trouble is, I’m conflicted. On the one hand, I believe my wife’s behavior represents an existential threat to our union; her budget is unhinged, immoral, and quite possibly illegal. On the other hand, everything is totally normal and if I just do what I always do, I feel like my wife will 1) come to her senses, 2) strike a fair deal, and 3) honor the spirit and letter of said deal.

That conflicted feeling is why I went full-ostrich for September. I’m told that if you stick your head in the sand long enough, the sand gets in your eyes, and eventually blinds you such that you can’t see your problems. But now that October is here, the winds have shifted and the stand I stuck my head in blew away. That’s why, against my better (and lesser) judgment, I shut down our house. It simply had to be done. For some reason.

And you know what? Shutting it down felt good. Really good. Sure, I’m being pilloried by the press and abused on social media, but damn it, I’m taking a stand — for once. I don’t know how long I can hold out. Hell, I’m not even 100% on my list of demands. Part of me believes I shouldn’t make a deal until Christina agrees to scrap the entire budget. But another part of me thinks that maybe we can settle this dust-up if she simply agrees to continue the madness for another fiscal year. And then this whole other part of me thinks that I can’t get any real concessions, but if I make a big stink, maybe I’ll get something symbolic, like a reduction in the number of pillows on our bed.

But none of that matters. Right here, right now, our house is shut way the hell down. All I need for my coalition to hold together is for the dogs to say no to promises of steak topped with melted cheese and drizzled with peanut butter. I’ve got this, I think hope.

Shout out time!

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IAUA: I ask, you answer

How long can I hold out? Encouraging answers only.

What are my demands? Seriously, I need suggestions, and there no bad ideas in a brainstorm. Go deep!

Did you fall for the sombrero-gate deepfake, or do you have eyes that are attached to a functioning brain?

Is your household budget a mess? Share your pain.

Since my place is closed for business, can I stay at your place?

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