Money.
It makes the world go around and is the root of all evil. It can’t
buy you love, unless of course it can, which it probably can. Depends
on your definition of love, so I’ll just say it can’t buy me
love. Though it might be that I just haven’t got enough. Money
can’t buy happiness, but it can buy you the kind of misery you’d
prefer. Money, money, money, must be funny, in a rich mans world.
Well, I’m not a rich man but it’s pretty amusing from where I’m
sitting as well, and when I say amusing I mean it in a
laugh-so-hard-you-weep-deeply kind of a way. Have too much of it and
it loses all value, don’t have enough and its value means nothing
to you. Sit somewhere in the middle and money is just that thing you
possess fleetingly, that allows you to not die, eat pizza, play Xbox
and all that jazz.
I’ve
never really given money the respect that it almost certainly doesn’t
deserve. Some of the people around me are able to save a little here,
invest a little there. They have some left at the end of the month.
Bastards. They will have a large collection of pounds and pennies one
day, perhaps even a swimming pool full of them, and they’ll be able
to dive in like Scrooge McDuck, which would be stupid because that
would really hurt and they’d probably get coins lodged in their
eyes, or under their skin, or horrible paper cuts from the notes, and
they’ll think that they’re happy, and I suppose they might be.
Where am I going with this? Oh yes – even if they are happy, it
won’t be because of the money. Well, not just because of the money.
Yet
again, I find myself in the last week of the month, just days from
being paid and having just crept over my overdraft limit. This
results in a very dull week, fines from the bank who really shouldn’t
let me have such a large overdraft, let alone go over the point at
which they’ve decided I can’t have any more debt, and even less
respect for cash. You see, for each event in which money leaves me
worse off, I actually loathe it a little bit more, and because of
that treat it with even more contempt. Money is kind of like my
battered wife – if you will – the more she whines about my
drinking and flirting with buxom barmaids, the more I hit her. I love
her, but I hit her. I love her, I hit her and I spend her on sweets
and computer games. Money that is, not my battered wife, she’s not
allowed out so it’s hard to spend her on anything.
I
have spent too much on alcohol, sugared confectionary, games,
groceries, fast food, alcohol, days out, treats for my daughter,
alcohol and on one occasion, clothes. These are things that I wanted
and in some cases actually needed, but with every one I could have
spent less or not at all. Could’ve. Didn’t. Should’ve. Didn’t.
Where I could have drank water, I quaffed cola, where I could have
purchased own brands, I didn’t and where I could have waited til I
got home to eat the expensive, branded food stuffs in my cupboards, I
bought a Subway or Burger King or take away pizza of some kind.
Foolish, enjoyable, easily duplicated mistakes to be sure, but it’s
only money innit. I’d like to be more sensible, to think more about
each purchase, to save some of that money so that I have more of it
than I do, so that I can spend it on more things, or bigger, more
expensive things. Why am I wasting my time on these trifling little
debts, when I could get a house with a mortgage, a car, a private
school for the little un, an extension for the house, a mistress, a
wife to cheat on with my mistress and a full Smegg kitchen on credit.
Sure,
I’d like to – nay, need to – be better with the cash. I have to
save a little bit more than I am, just to provide a safety net and a
holiday fund and a pot to dip into should I decide to give that
Crystal Meth a go. But generally I spend it on the right stuff: fun
with people I want to spend time with, often while drunk. Because of
all the stupid, nonsensical sayings that people spout about coins and
the folding (or open blog posts with), only one is definitely true.
You
can’t take it with you.
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