What is entitlement?

$200 a week? Her brain is beginning to operate as the sound of the alarm clock rattles her eyelids, then she opens one to view the time. A long involuntary yawn seeps away from her as Catherine stretches her body out of its slumber and fresh dream she was just having about an Italian lover who worked as a chef in some discreet tourist destination’ foregin. He was feeding her scrambled eggs scrambled so tiny it felt like a crime to eat them how delicious they were in her asleep life. She tossed and turned, If I were working for anyone else, l I wouldn't get out of bed for at least $200 an hour. Just wait until I get in my field, once I finish school with my masters degree.Then at least my time will be with my own efforts to make a living. Who wants to go to work all their life? Wasn't there a chamber of commerce advisory panel I could send in my complaint of excessive hours on the job. At least for me I WANT MY INHERITANCE! Once her feet were on the floor she was ready to win the day. The route to the coffee maker she could do sleep walking if need be. Once she reaches it she reaches for the phone and wants to call in sick but thinks out loud. If my boss weren't my mother would have called it quits by now. I know I'm worth more than 200 a week!

My value alone is reflected by what amount of money I make for the business, using SEO optimization to rank her web site in the top 10 on Google whenever someone searches for a realtor. I wasn’t brought up to complain about putting in my share of work even if I was only working for my own inheritance, that stipulated I must hold a job before I get any of the family money. She happens to be my mother so she is the last one who would want to hear anything about the waiting two more years to turn 21. My complaints I felt were valid, entitlement, is exactly how I felt, wasn't I entitled after all to the million dollars my father has left for me. My father passed away 21 years ago and I still haven't gotten my due share, and she’s made me feel her burden of widowhood. “All you have to do is show up and sign your name, I had to take care of you since he died!” How could she have known she would be alone raising a kid at such a young age? She still has a small chip on her shoulder about it. His widow, again my mother, has the audacity to pay her only child $200 measly dollars a week as her 24/7 on-call personal assistant to her Brokerage. Who would want to get out of bed when they could be in a house of their own without the hassle of going to work to slave for rent money. It was her cruel idea of the thrill of chasing an American Dream. Waiting to see my hard work pay off was the last thing on my mind. Was I spoiled to think this way? Or is it correct to think that my father put an occupation that ultimately took his life in a freak on the job accident survived by his wife and infant child should yield back in some sort of dollar amount of suffering? I've had to endure due to not having him in my life. Of course I'm entitled and acted like it. From what I was told my father had stashed a million dollars away, it was whispered among the locals to be later common knowledge. Now legend has it said that the location of the money is on his native home island of his birthplace in the house I was born at and the real problem is my mother never had a deed to the property. She’s had me come in to work on this special project since I turned 18 and had time for all the researching of government records with some of them now being supplied online. She gave me a Moleskine daily planner and has me keep track of each contact person I make regarding the generational property that she is trying to have released back to our family. It’s been an entire 20 years and nobody has made any claim to have found the money in the property so she thinks it is a rumor. How do you hide a million dollars? Wouldn't the rats eat the cash by now? Is there a secret place he stashed it in a wall or basement? In my heart I know my father put that money in a good hiding spot and I show up to work every day dedicated to getting to the bottom of my inheritance!

On this particular day Catherine walked into the office and saw mother on the phone at her large maple desk placed in the center of the room commanding the attention. She was doing her own doodling on a Moleskine desk calendar repeating a string of numbers then another one and then another one. It was banking information. She was telling her anxious daughter that they needed to send a wired transaction for the cost to close the deal where they would get the official title to the property along with the deed. “Catherine, it's time to make the reservations for travel arrangements to the Islands for that next week so we could take over control of the property!”

“That's the best news all year mom, wow what are we going to buy when we find the money? Clearly Catherine never had an idea of how to deal with money, always spending as much of it as she got her hands on.

“Maybe you need a class on how to invest? You really don't want to blow any money at your age.”

“That's exactly what someone my age is supposed to do with a bag! Spend it!” She was acting as if the world were her oyster her mother thought and gave her a kind grin. It was time to see if the rumors had been true. Was there a million dollars left for Catherine to go out and make the world her playground or was it all hype? Catherine was writing in her planner the details that the travel agent was conveying over her speakerphone on her modest corner desk in the adjacent room.