Pecuniary
Frederick was a man of pecuniary and numerical matters. He loved numbers. Anything with numbers, that was his penchant. Oddly enough, he didn’t do any maths subjects in school, nor in university. It was a sudden and insurgent interest that had only made itself clear in his older, more dignified years. When his previous hobbies had all become far too immature, Frederick had discovered the joy of trigonometry, Pythagoras’ theorem and probability.
He had his numerical and pecuniary schedule of course. Every morning he would start of by opening his puzzle book to the newest Sudoku puzzle. That would be finished in – on his worst day – ten minutes at most. His next challenge was the daily puzzles in the newspaper. He would skip the riddles, the word patterns and the scrambles and go straight to the numerical pyramid that could easily be solved in a few, well thought out minutes. He would then go about his day, feeling as if he had sated a portion – if a small portion at that – of his very nearly insatiable numerical hunger. When the day was out, and he had used maths as many times as possible to solve his daily problems, he would settle down with a cup of hot chocolate and his favourite cinnamon cookie and begin to settle his pecuniary matters. His daily budgeting was an important part of his life, and he had an extensive software program designed solely to keep his monetary affairs in order. He would record his expenses, input his earnings, balance his profits, manage debts (though there were very few), plan his daily budget, and finally put aside a few dollars in a ceramic blue mug on his desk for a treat. That mug would purchase him a special chocolate bar, or maybe a new pair of mittens.
As is quite clear from Fredericks schedule, numbers and money are among the top priorities in his life, the next few being punctuality, and general if not excessive politeness. He had no patience for other things, least of all relationships. He had no friends to speak of, unless you counted your puzzle book a friend. His family had moved to Switzerland out of the blue, quite unbeknown to Frederick who had prepared the turkey for the family Christmas only to find that no one was home. But he didn’t mind too much. Families were too noisy, and far too ignorant of the importance of budgeting and maths. A wife would be too eager to splurge on a holiday, or perhaps a new dress. The children would always be wanting new things, and his little treat mug would be gone in an instant, snatched up by their greedy little hands for tuckshop money or a new yoyo that would break after two days. Clearly, Frederick had his life sorted out quite well, thank you very much, and needed no family or friends to make him happy. All he needed were his numbers, his hot chocolate and his budget software. Oh and his job. He wouldn’t know what to do if he didn’t work. He was an accountant (of course) although he hadn’t been his whole life. But he tried not to dwell on his past, rather embarrassing obsession with professional trombone playing. Accounting was all that mattered now. And numbers. And budgeting. And his hot chocolate.
At the end of his day, Frederick would close his budgeting software, clean his mug, dust the crumbs off his nightshirt and slip into bed. The light would be switched off and Frederick would let his mind drift off on a cloud of prime numbers and nearest decimal points. After all, Frederick was a man of numeric and pecuniary matters.
