Money, money, money, always money
At the beginning of the month, I started off with $200 cash on hand and around $300 in my bank cheque account. I had always been more of a saver than a spender but what with eating-out entirely too much this month and buying new books for the new semester, I went broke.
On Friday, I went to the school cafeteria and was swiping my bank card for a $5 breakfast and it came up with “DECLINED”. I knew those eight letters put together really just means insufficient money in the account but I did not want to even consider the possibility that I could have less than $5 in my account. This had never happened before. Reluctantly, I handed over $5 coins. The original $6.50 coins was all I had left of my $200 cash and that was meant for the bus ride home. Confused, I stomped over to the ATM machine on campus and checked my account balance. 26 cents. I had to borrow $10 from my friend for the bus home. How embarrassing.
Fortunately, I managed to knock $129 off dad for all the amount I spent on my new books. I wonder where all the rest went. Checking my statement, apart from books, it was just food. It feels heartbreaking to think that I swallowed and digested all that money, which meant it literally went down the (toilet) drain eventually.
I recently had that cliché debate with my friend on the topic of Money vs Love. Whoever still believes that love prevails completely over money needs to be stop being an impractical dreamer (i.e. my friend). In order for the so-called “true love” to win against money, the first condition that needs to be met is sufficient money. True, a woman in love could choose a poorer man over a rich man, but if the woman and the poorer man together could not even afford the basic living requirements for themselves, love necessarily becomes redundant.
So I asked my friend, if he does not have a job with sufficient income to feed his girl, what could he offer her in the end? And he replied, “my soul.” Right. Another stubborn dreamer hopelessly stuck to his romantic impracticalities. I have my romantic dreams, but I need to live too. What is love without the life to love? In the end, money makes the world go ’round. I need food, and I need my bus rides home. But more importantly, I need to cut down on my consumption until I start working again or become a professional beggar. I need to swear too. Shit.
