Ins and Outs

Jorth sat down at the kitchen table, and began to compile her weekly expenditure accounts. Previously, she had dutifully recorded all the money spent on groceries, tradesmen's payments etc in a little book with ruled columns that detailed her ins and outs, but with the advent of internet banking it seemed rather superfluous to be writing down the latest telephone bill. And somewhat depressing, what with all the bills forever going up, nagdammit!

So now she kept a peculiar tally of her own devising, faithfully recording the bites taken out of life's pie, as well as the extra sprinkles on top that came her way. Today's entry looked like this:

Ins:
 - one splendid idea for which baby cardigan to knit for brand new nephew (heaven bless Debbie Bliss)
 - 148(!) cherry tomatoes from balcony garden (there would be less, but the Tyger had yet to heed her cries of "Only pick the ripe ones, kiddo!")
 - half a knitted sleeve (here she paused and agonised a little. True, she had knitted half a sleeve, but did that mean that she should put the yarn used in the Outs column? Tricky business, this accountancy stuff)

Outs:
 - one tooth
 - one shiny gold coin (see above)
 - 8 ribbons from the ribbon bag, claimed by the Tyger as her own forever and ever, and currently to be found wrapped around every limb
 - 146 pages of The Witches by Roald Dahl, read out loud as the Tyger wrapped the aforementioned ribbons around herself.

Jorth closed her accounts book with a satisfied sigh, shooing away the niggling suspicion that perhaps it wasn't how the good folks at PriceWaterhouseCoopers managed their books. As far as she was concerned, her ins and outs were perfectly balanced, particularly if one liked cherry tomatoes, and Jorth liked them very, very much.