Accounting

"Sam?" Carly called as she walked into her best friend's home. "You home?"

"Yeah, I'm in the kitchen," Sam replied.

"What're you doing?" Carly asked, seeing Sam working on a laptop with piles of papers spread out around her.

"Paying my stupid bills…do I even have this much money?"

"Um, doesn't Freddie usually pay your bills?" Carly frowned. "He was president of the Yong Businessmen's club back in high school."

"Yeah, but the stupid nub thinks that I can't handle this! Ha!"

"Um, I'm pretty sure you just placed half of your son's college fund into another account," Carly pointed out.

"Oh," Sam said blankly, staring at the screen. "Eh, Jason's a smart kid; he'll get scholarships."

"Sam, please do not submit anything," Carly begged. "Because if you send it the way it is now, I'm pretty sure you'll be 50,000 dollars in debt."

"I'm not asking Freddie for help, if that's where you're going."

"Sam-"

"Hey, do you think it would matter if I just send half the mortgage payment? Maybe they won't notice…"

….

"Hey, I'm home," Freddie said, taking off his jacket as he walked in the door. "Sorry I'm late; my boss spilled coffee on his laptop and I had to help him recover some files."

"Hey," Sam greeted him, giving him a quick peck on the lips. "We saved you some dinner; it's on the stove."

"Cool. Kids asleep?"

"Yup," Sam nodded.

"So, what did you do all day?"

"Um, nothing," Sam said quickly. "Just stayed home. Actually, I'm really tired; think I'll head up to bed."

"All right, I'll be up in a minute," Freddie said.

Sam went upstairs and Freddie sat down to eat. Just as he was about to take a bite of his chicken, though, he noticed Sam's laptop sitting on the counter with a blinking light indicating that it was still on.

Figuring he would turn it off for her, Freddie opened the laptop, and saw the family's banking statements pop up on the screen. He scanned the page and almost had a heart attack. He knew Sam said she was going to do the bills this month, but he wasn't prepared for this! Fortunately, he saw that Sam hadn't sent them yet. He quickly fixed the numbers, then gulped down his dinner and headed upstairs.

"Sam," Freddie said, going into their bedroom. "You remember when you told me that you were going to take care of paying our bills from now on and said, and I quote, "I'll be ten times better than you, Benson"?"

"Um, yes," Sam nodded, fidgeting with the corner of her sheets. "And I will be better-"

"You left the bank statement up on your computer," Freddie told her, grinning. "And let me just say that I'm very impressed….with your numbers, we're approximately 73,821 dollars in debt."

"You probably just read it wrong," Sam snapped. "And keep your hands off my computer!"

"Come on, baby, admit it; you suck at it!"

"Say that again; I dare you."

"What's the big deal? I don't mind paying the bills," Freddie said, sitting down on the bed next to his wife.

"The big deal is that now you think that I'm too stupid to handle something as simple as moving a few numbers around!"

"I don't think," Freddie said. "I'm sure if you'd taken Accounting classes in high school like I did you'd be fine. But Sam, you do a ton of things around here that I would fail miserably at and I've accepted that."

"Like what?"

"Like managing your job as a script writer and taking care of the four kids during the day," Freddie said. "Honestly, those times I have to watch them when you go to those conventions I think I'm going to pull my hair out."

"Yeah, you are pretty weak," Sam shrugged.

"And you make enough food to feed an army; I've never been hungry once in our thirteen years of marriage."

"You know that's just because I love to eat. But I get it; I'm brilliant."

"Yeah, you are," Freddie grinned. "Just promise me one thing."

"What?"

"Never touch our bills again."