Money isn’t real ‘til it’s in hand

By Alan Linda | The Daily Journal

Published Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Money that isn’t in your hand isn’t really money, is it. Credit cards and checks just don’t feel as good, don’t have that money-green color or the different numbers that are more thrilling as they get larger and come into your hands.

Money is on my mind, because I’ve been waiting for my government stimulus money all year, ever since the folks who should know this stuff said that people don’t have enough money to spend, so let’s just give them some of their money back.

That’s pretty nice of them. It’s kind of like going to a restaurant and, just as you notice your coffee cup is empty, the waitress, instead of ignoring you, sees that you’re in need and splashes some more into your cup. Nice. It tastes better this time because it’s bonus coffee. Free coffee.

It’s stimulus coffee. Great stuff.

As June went by, then July and August, and September, I kept looking in the mailbox for my stimulus check.

I called up a friend: “Say, have you gotten your stimulus check from the government yet?”

He said yes, he had, like, a couple of months ago. “It came in handy,” he said.

“Oh? What did you blow it on?” The thing that seems to come with that next cup of coffee is the urge to drink it quick, hope the waitress sees that you need another shot of stimulus.

He said: “I put it where I could see it every day, in my son’s braces.”

Oh. Sure, I said, that’s a great place for it.

What a liar I am. That’s not a great place to be stimulated, was what I thought, and swore that if I ever got the darned thing, I’d blow it on, oh, something kind of frivolous, like, like, um, oh, something.

But, there’s no sense counting one’s chickens before they hatch, so I kind of went back to checking the mailbox, calling friends, finding out they’d got theirs already, not asking what they spent it on, because there’s no sense contaminating my impetuous spending goals with someone else’s good sense.

Dad always used to say you’re never broke if someone still owes you money. Understand, now, that he said that back in a time when cash still meant something; when cash earned you a discount, unlike now, when people who have a credit card in that gas station’s name get the discount, and people who have a hundred bucks for that tank of gas get looked at like they came to rob the place when they walk up to prepay for their gas.

Still nothing in the mailbox. Maybe the check was in one of those nondescript envelopes and maybe I discarded it as junk mail that contained offers about magic electric heaters, or gold coins just discovered in a limited amount and released at a special offering price, or a special tape recording of the Carol Burnett show, or a free introductory dose of see-alice so you’ll be ready when that special moment comes..

Sure, there’s a certain amount of stimulus involved in that last item, but let’s cut to the bottom line here: Cash. That’s what stimulates me the most. If I’m going to wave something around, it’s going to be hundred-dollar bills.

Your call: You’re walking down the street and on the sidewalk are two things. There’s a hundred-dollar bill and a box of be-ready-for-that-special-moment. Which one are you going to pick up if you can only pick up one? Which one you’ll pick up is why the government isn’t sending out the other.

I want my stimulus in hundreds, if that’s okay, not as a brown government check. That’s what I’d tell the government if they asked me. Anyone knows that given the choice, hundred-dollar-bills, or a piece of paper, we’d take the cash. Knowing I’m not going to get stimulated with a refill of greenbacks takes a lot of the fun out of being stimulated.

“They probably direct deposited your stimulus to your bank account,” said a friend to me.

No. Really? No! NONONO!!!

Not getting it in cash but in a check in the mail, well, that’s not the end of the world, even though it sure isn’t as exciting, but direct deposited? Talk about disappointment.

Then the raw truth occurred to me: I had already spent my stimulus. It could have been second-half real estate taxes; it could have been car tires; it could have been any common, way-unstimulating thing. The realization that my stimulus had come and gone froze me up. I felt left out, like my empty cup of coffee was as cold as the grave and the waitress was locking up.

The knowledge that I had squandered my stimulus payment on tires and taxes instead of, like, cowboy hats and casinos, has me depressed.

Like the economy.

Alan Linda writes from his New York Mills home.