One week since I told Mike about the card.

Sold 31 Beanies this week. After eBay fees and postage and the padded envelopes, that's $406, and every penny of it went on the card Friday. I stood at the post office with a stack of 22 packages and the lady behind the counter said, "Somebody's busy," and I said, "Somebody's cleaning up her mess," and she laughed like I was kidding.

Thursday night Mike sat next to me at the computer to watch an auction close. A Garcia bear, the old tie-dye one. At 8:58 it was at $38 and he was yelling at the screen, "Come on, Tennessee! You can do better than that!" It went for $51. He high-fived me. I paid $90 for that bear in March. I didn't say that part. He knows.

He still gets quiet sometimes. Friday he asked, "Is there anything else?" and I said no, and he said okay. I know he'll ask again. He should.

Kaylee (she's 7) asked why the Beanie room keeps getting emptier. I said we're sending them to new homes. She said, "Like puppies?" Like puppies. Her brother Brandon, who is 4, has been "helping" by putting a Beanie in every envelope, including the electric bill. I caught that one at the mailbox.

Tomorrow I start at the cleaners. Mike's mom is going to pick Brandon up from preschool if I run late. I have not told her why I'm going to work. One truth at a time.

Balance on the card: $5,608.87

We wrote The Plan on the back of an envelope Monday night and it's on the refrigerator under Brandon's drawing of a shark. Here it is, so I can't weasel out of it:

1. No more buying. Not one. Not at a show, not at the card shop, not at McDonald's.
2. Sell down the tubs. At least 25 listings a week. The kids each keep five favorites. (Kaylee picked the purple Princess bear first, of course. That's how this whole thing started.)
3. I called the card company myself and asked them to lower the rate. They did. Who knew you could just ask?
4. I start at the dry cleaners on Jefferson Street on Monday. Three mornings a week while Brandon's at preschool. $5.50 an hour.
5. Mike's lottery money goes in a coffee can for the card instead. (See Sunday.)
6. The P.O. box is closed. All the mail comes to the house.
7. We tell each other the truth. Even the small stuff.

Thank you to everybody who wrote after Sunday. A lady in Texas e-mailed that she did the same thing with collector plates in 1994 and her husband still brings it up. That was maybe not as comforting as she meant it, ha. But it helped.

Balance on the card: $6,014.87 (the starting line)

I told him.

After the kids were asleep. Kitchen table. I put the statement down in front of him face down, which is a dumb thing to do, like it's a card trick. He turned it over and read it twice.

He didn't yell at first. He got very quiet and asked how long. I said since February. He said, "February. That's Valentine's Day, Shel."

Then he yelled. Not at me, exactly. At the tubs. He went in the spare room and opened one and held up a bear and said, "THIS? This is six thousand dollars?" And I said, "It's not all that one," which did not help anything.

The thing that got me wasn't the yelling. It was when he sat back down and said, "I would have helped you. You didn't even give me the chance to help you." Then he went out the back door and drove around for an hour and a half. I sat at the table and did not call my mother, which is growth.

He came back at 11:40 with a Butterfinger Blizzard from Dairy Queen and put it in front of me and sat down. We talked till almost two. Around one o'clock he told me he's been buying lottery tickets at the gas station every day since spring. Five dollars a day.

"That's not six thousand dollars, Mike."
"I know it's not. I'm just saying I'm not a saint."

Nobody's a saint at one in the morning over a melted Blizzard. We didn't fix anything tonight. We just quit hiding it. That's where we are.

Sunday. After church, after the kids are in bed, I'm telling him. I'm writing it here so I have to. You're all my witnesses.

Well, I have my answer about which half of the message boards was right. Neither.

For about four days after the announcement everything went crazy. I sold a Halo bear for more than I paid. I sold two Peace bears in an hour. I thought, see, Shelly, you're a genius. Then everybody else in America who owns a Rubbermaid tub had the same idea and listed at the same time. I put up 30 auctions Sunday night and 12 of them didn't get one single bid. Not one. A check from a buyer in Ohio bounced, $42, and I'd already shipped, and the bank charged me $20 for the privilege.

Kaylee started second grade last week. She has a teacher who wears Beanie Baby earrings. I am not making that up. I smiled at her at open house and wanted to lie down on the floor.

Mike asked me last night what's the matter with me lately. I said I was tired. That's true. It's also the smallest true thing I could find.

Ty is retiring ALL of them. Every Beanie Baby, at the end of the year.

Jackie, my Beanie buddy from way back in the card shop lines, called at a quarter to ten screaming so loud Mike could hear it from the couch. Then I got on the computer and the message boards were going nuts. Half the people say this means every Beanie in my spare room just doubled, because there won't ever be any more. The other half say this means it's over, the whole thing, the bubble, and we're all going to be stuck with tubs of plush animals and a lot of explaining to do.

I read both halves until 1:30. It's 1:40 now. I don't know which half I believe. I know which half I want to believe, and I know that isn't the same thing.

Before he went to bed Mike asked what all the screaming was about. I told him. He said, "Good. Maybe we'll get the spare room back." He thinks it's a hobby that pays for itself. That's what I told him in April.

Beanie show today at a hotel ballroom out in the suburbs. Jackie drove. We were in line at 8:15 for a 9:00 opening, and when they opened the doors a grown woman in a sweatshirt with Beanie Babies on it actually ran. Ran! Past a man with a cane!

I told myself $100, tops. I spent $380. Two retired bears and a box lot of 40 older ones from a dealer who was "getting out." He said the market was "correcting." I said, sure, so it's a good time to buy, right? He gave me a look I keep thinking about. Like a man handing somebody a hot potato.

Got home and the statement was in the P.O. box. It's over six thousand now. I paid the minimum out of the grocery envelope and we're having spaghetti three times this week. Mike said, "Spaghetti again? Not complaining!" He always says "not complaining."

New rule for this journal: I'm going to be honest on it, since I'm not being honest anywhere else.

Here's my business the way I'd explain it at a PTA meeting. In early '98 our daughter Kaylee wanted the purple Princess bear, the one for Princess Diana, and you could not find one anywhere. I finally got one at a card shop in Plainfield and paid way over the tag, and while I was standing there a lady bought twelve. Twelve! By that summer I was on eBay three nights a week. It paid for Brandon's birthday party last year and half of our new couch, and my husband Mike called me his little entrepreneur. He still does.

Here's the business the way it actually is. There are 14 Rubbermaid tubs in the spare bedroom, every Beanie in its own plastic tag protector. And there's a Visa I opened in February that comes to a P.O. box, and the balance on it this morning is $5,640. I kept buying retired ones at shows, because retired ones always go up. Except this summer they don't.

Mike doesn't know about the card. I'm going to tell him. I'm going to fix it first, and then tell him. That's the plan.