For as non-materialistic as he is, my dad definitely has a penchant for hanging on to papers. I've unabashedly teased him in the past about his white boxes full of documents and canceled checks. Now, he's not an insane saver- it's all financial information and the like, and it's not like it's creating a huge cascading paper tower threatening to smother him.

Yesterday, his "saving" paid off for me- he was sorting through some stuff and brought me some old paperwork: The bill for my mom's pre-natal care and my delivery, the bill for removing a tic-tac from my ear, and the bill for my broken arm in kindergarten. For the morbidly curious, here's the breakdown:

In 1974, the doctor bill for pre-natal care and delivery was $240. Total.
The hospital bill broke down this way: delivery room: $50, anesthesia: $10, lab: $11, drugs: $10.32, Supplies: $7.92, 3 days for Merrilee in the ward: $105, 3 days for me in the nursery: $48.

Tic Tac Removal (right ear): 11/21/79: $13.50.

The broken arm (9/18/79) was a hefty bill, even now: $465 to the doctor, $1300 to the hospital.

1979 wasn't a good year for me: I think in addition to the broken arm and tic tac incident I needed stitches in my chin once for sure and maybe twice. I wonder if someday Kiki will laugh about the almost $10,000 (that's out of pocket!) we paid to get her here and say that we got off easy.