Mammon Meltdown

"Daddy, are we poor?"

"Nah, well...we're more like lower middle class slash upper poor." These are my father's words.

Last night while with friends, the subjects of money, jobs, and the lack thereof, and the economy came up. The mood seemed to land on fear, specifically the fear of financial and economic insecurity. Not an unusual discussion for this day and age, no?

Most of us, it appears, are either unemployed or underemployed. Maybe one out of ten of us is actually making their bills, and when people talk about credit cards, I generally hear the balances somewhere in the $20-30Ks. As the wicked witch of the west would say, "What a world, what a world...I'm melting, melting..."

I think most of us learned to relate to money at home, when we were kids. Kids watch and absorb just about everything. I mean, we all know that "don't do what I do, do what I say" is a bunch of hooey by this point, right? No matter what they taught us, we pretty much do what they did. Until it doesn't work anymore. But that's for tomorrow's post.

I grew up in a fearful, shameful, deprivational atmosphere when it came to the green stuff. There was no such thing as enough, and if someone actually appeared as though they had enough, they were assholes. And must have done something either crooked or selfish - anything that would have labeled them "undeserving" in my parents eyes. Or, more specifically, my dad's. Because no one deserved to have enough. I guess maybe if you had enough, then death should be next...or that was the insinuation.

So - we'd all be toiling out in the front yard and neighbor Jones would drive by in a new car and my dad would stand up tall, big and proud and say to my mother, "Well, WE don't have a new car!" And my mom would beam back at him, "Yeah!" ...Say WHAT? would be going through my head.

What's the matter with a new car? Well, obviously Jones is self-centered and selfish, just trying to show off and has got to be taking away something from his family. They would wait and watch, all lathered up, to find what it was that was lacking - maybe his kids had crappy shoes and were skin and bones, or he didn't mow his lawn because his mower was broken, or his roof would cave in - because NO WAY could Jones afford that new car. NO ONE who isn't dying or a pompous jerkoff could afford a new car. Everyone who is anyone must suffer mediocrity! Jones was a Mammon Monster (grandma Valborg would have a stroke!)

To this day I don't know how much my dad made for a living. If I asked my mother, she would blush heavily and say, "Oh, don't worry your head, we're not going to starve."

And then there was my mom's looney, magical thinking about money. We would go to the mall and she would try on this great, perfect dress and a look would cross her face like someone was holding a gun to her head saying, "Put it back, beotch!" She would put the dress back on the rack and say, "Well, if it's here when we get back on our way out, then it will mean it was meant for me and I'll get it. But we have to get what we need first."

She'd push us through the mall with slowly building speed, frothing at the mouth and gibbering on about where would she wear something like that and I would say, how about to scrub the bathtub (my mom wore almost nothing but dresses back then) and she would build up to a cackle and she would get what we came for in record speed and push us as fast as her little legs could carry her back to the dress and - of course - it would be gone.

Oh, the sad relief on that woman's face. "Well, it wasn't meant to be after all. Oh, well, we couldn't afford it anyway, really."

"But mommy, we just bought a dishwasher with all the extras the sales man was talking about."

"Yes, but that's for all of us so that we can have a better life."

"But daddy said no."

"Yes, daddy said no and he's going to be mad but I'm getting a damn dishwasher!!!"

Then she'd light one cigarette off another and make a martini when she got home.

So what is there between starving and a new car? And between a dress and a dishwasher? And how wide a range is this? No wonder I have no idea of the size of things or what they should cost! I buy a house at top dollar and bargain shop for toilet paper to this day.

When I got my first job at 15 as a carhop on rollerskates at A&W, my dad was proud, patted me on the back and "Wonderful! So that's it then - you're on your own!" And I laughed - but he didn't. He meant it. That was the last he ever bought of my school clothes or supplies or movies or anything other than the roof over my head. At 15. And, desperate, several decades later, when I asked him if he could please, please help me save my house for the sake of his granddaughter, he paused, sighed and said, "No, of course not." He meant it then and he means it now. When it comes to money, you're on your own. Who wouldn't be afraid?

And if you can't hack it, you should be ashamed of yourself. Cringe. And if someone helps you, you should shrink back in despair and assume the position...downward dog pose, girlfriend.

My dad had the same job for 45 years and retired to live off his pension and 401Ks. My mom held her job for 30 years and pretty much did the same. But life isn't like that anymore, and most of us are not at all prepared to know how to cope and readjust with fluctuating times. Even, or especially, our own government, for god's sake.

Changing times call for changing ideals of what we need and what we want and when each is appropriate and when the line is blurred. And that's what I'm talking about next.

But for now, I'm grateful to have suffered long enough through the internal echoing voices of my parents to know that what they thought was right about money is downright hooey to me!