elementary karma economics

I’m feeling generous today.

Which is not entirely to be expected, considering the fact that I had to get up early for a meeting this morning even though I don’t have class today, and the fact that I had to walk into town in the soft, slippery, blindingly white snow.  You might also think I would be stingy these days, since I am supposed to be keeping close track of my finances and I was sure that such a task would prevent me from throwing down money at the drop of the hat.

Okay, I haven’t been doing that – obviously throwing money at hats is more than mere carelessness.  I think the fact that I have not been doing this is a good sign.

***

I’ve been realizing this year that hospitality style has a lot to do with friendship.  I’m not suggesting you set out frilly towels and dust ruffles for houseguests, and I definitely do not mean to imply that if my host(ess) fails to decorate the guest room to my liking, then our friendship is going nowhere fast.  I mean that I don’t keep a tab with my closest friends, and they don’t keep one with me.  We just keep tabs on each other.  These open bars just keep on feeding each other drinks.

One Monday evening last semester I got out of work early to ride with Mary up to visit Bethel College.  She was going to a seminary open house there, and I thought a change of scene would be welcome and productive.  Plus, I like to think about my parents there 25 years ago.

Unfortunately I had to skip dinner to make it there on time, so by the time we got home it was very late and I was famished.  We stopped at Subway and I ordered a sandwich and when it came time to pay the cashier said, “I’m sorry, this card is being declined.”  I looked at the register: $6.42.  Seriously?  Mary lent me some cash, but in some detached universe I was mortified.  The balance of my checking account turned out to be just over two dollars.

Our guest speaker in class yesterday works for Wells Fargo and she gave us the lowdown on credit.  She explained that sometimes, if you have a common name like Smith or Jones, items that factor into your credit score can get mixed up with items that belong in someone else’s credit score.  “I think that’s what happened here,” she said of her example (with all identifying information blacked out), “because I work with this person, I know him well, and he’s much better than a 720 credit score.”

My desperate hope is that, despite a rejected six-dollar charge on my debit card, or any other current or future blemishes on my credit report, I am much better than an 850 credit score.  (For those of you who don’t know, 850 is the maximum credit score you can have, and pretty much guarantees you the lowest interest rate on any credit cards you apply for.  I would just hope that my credit score has little or nothing to do with my overall character.  Please vouch for me here.)

***

How much does a change of scene, a few hours of free Wi-Fi, patrons-only restroom access, and uninterrupted to-do-list-ticking-off time cost?  Is one almond chai bubble tea and a 25% tip enough?

The problem with Personal Finance is the inherent susceptibility to obsessive number crunching, receipt hoarding, and penny pinching.  And a reversion to that economic theory of relationships (tell me again, Dr. Treen: who spearheaded that theory?).  I’m also fascinated by NINJA (no income, no job) loans.  They sound like such an adventure!  Just like credit card advertisements.  (I just heard one on the radio claiming that a Discover card can make you a millionaire.  Also, something to do with an emergency chocolate stash.  I almost laughed out loud, but just in time I balanced my personality checkbook with a quick subtraction of financial nerddom and salvaged my sense of humor and pride.)

Fortunately, I hadn’t lost sight of myself to the extent that I couldn’t stop when I saw a woman’s tires spitting out snow in front of the post office.  She wasn’t going anywhere, so with my recently discovered gumption I called out and asked if she needed a shove.  “Maybe,” she called back, and gave it some more gas.  She wouldn’t ask, but I got behind the car, wedged my boots sideways in the slippery mounds of snow, and put my whole weight behind those spitting tires.  (Reason #2 that I’ve been working out…  I’m flexing right now.  Oh yeah.)  I heard a man’s voice make some exclamation from the post office steps, but before he could come over and lend his manly muscles to the task she was on her way, and waved her cigarette hand at me while she drove off.  I grinned and left to get me a tea and get down to business.

***

I’m g-chatting with Liz in Ghana right now, and she just marveled at the “plasticity of friendship.”  (Plasticity, like the unlimited credit balance on our friendship complete with automatic monthly payments…  Without interest and without hurting us in our hospitality banks.)  We joke about how our shared therapist must have a field day with the two of us – maybe sometime we’ll do a double session.  It would be like an ethically-questionable counseling sitcom.  Until then, though, “I love how friends are also life coaches at times.”  Free of charge.  This open bar is still open, baby.

opposites attract

Monday, January 3, 2011.  MGMT 231: Personal Finance.  Day One.

As usual, the course introduction includes, more or less, a definition of Personal Finance and an explanation of why it is important to our lives.  “I do have to point out, though,” says Professor Emery, “that money is not even ranked one of the top two most important factors in happiness.”  Those spots are generally saved for our human relationships.  “But!  More than half of married couples say that finances eventually put the greatest strain on the marriage relationship.  So this is important.  And,” she adds, “you will probably marry someone with the opposite financial style to you.”  Everyone laughs, but something in her statement sends me through a rabbit-hole…

***

There were two fifth grade teachers in my elementary school, their classrooms separated by a flimsy foldaway wall.  We did a lot of things separately, but the other class came to join us for social studies and we all piled into the room next door for science class.  We drew pictures of the water cycle in our Lisa Frank Trapper Keepers and learned how magnets work.

When I was in eighth grade, I came home from a double period science lab with a first-hand understanding of electrical currents after building our own small circuits and hooking them up to D batteries.  The first thing I did was burst into my 10-year-old brother’s room, forgetting the simple fact that he is a genius who always read science books for fun, and casually mention batteries so I could explain how they worked (better than I possibly could today).  “Yeah,” he said, and then picked up where I left off using terms that far surpassed my scientific understanding.  I backed out grumbling to myself, consoling myself with, “Well, at least I am the best writer in the eighth grade.  He can be good at science and art.”

Four or five years later, I found out that he was writing elaborate serials for the school paper that had the whole school holding their breath in anticipation of the next installment.  Time to throw in the towel, I thought.  I’ll just become self-aware and learn how to have healthy relationships.

In the spring of my sophomore year I dated a super-hot chemistry major who liked to sleep all day, stay up all night, and sometimes go days without talking to anyone.  He was incredibly smart, but cared far more about the chemical makeup of drug compounds than he did about St. Olaf’s social networks.  After we broke up, I discovered that the best way to explain my sociological interests to him was by spelling them out in a different alphabet: the Atoms and Bonds of Chemistry.

The most important thing I learned back in Mrs. Sollecito-Pritchard’s fifth grade science class, aside from the water cycle, was a simple scientific fact that applies to magnets, batteries, atomic bonds and relationships: “Opposites attract.”

***

I spent New Years’ Eve-Eve at my great-uncle Richard’s house in Alameda, California.  Our little party of six discussed a whole range of highly engaging topics, among them the fact that Uncle Dick indirectly convinced his older brother, my grandpa, to buy his first-ever television because of the movie My Cousin Vinny.  “Only to watch movies, of course,” he said.  “You know, I get three Netflix a week, and he’s happy with just the one…  Then again, I think I own enough movies to watch a different movie every day of the year and not repeat!”

Across from me, Aunt Karen was performing a subdued but equally pointed rendition of my classic eye roll.  “My Cousin Vinny is really funny,” she conceded, “if you can get past the F-yous…  But I don’t care for Kate and Leopold” – my grandpa’s other favorite movie – “or Lost in Austen” – Uncle Dick’s current fave.  “I hardly watch a movie a month.”

(This summer Uncle Dick told us a story about a party whose secret purpose was to hook him up with Karen.  “I went up to the prettiest girl in the room,” he said, “I don’t remember her name—but she didn’t know anything about anything I cared to talk about.  So after awhile I gave up and went to go talk to the second prettiest girl in the room.  Now, she knew everything about everything I could ever want to talk about and more.  And her name was Karen.”  At least that was the general gist of the story.

December thirtieth was evidence to this brilliant intellectual matchwork, and also to the hilarious microcosmic juxtapositions in their relationship.  Such as the fact that, according to Uncle Dick, all women like to pick the chocolate bits out of the nougat-and-nut ice cream topping and leave the nuts behind by themselves in the jar.)

***

“Sometimes I forget what different worlds we come from,” said Spencer, laughing at me when I mistook his Polo sweater for Ralph Lauren.  “That’s like not knowing what Doc Martens are.”

“Well, I’ve heard the name,” I replied, “but I don’t think I’d be able to pick them out of a lineup.”  His jaw dropped, but his eyes were sparkling.

His different world includes, in addition to Polo shirts and Doc Martens, under-the-table Mexican hired help, a splintered family life, creatine powder, and knowing what to do with weight equipment.  Mine includes Goodwill and Salvation Army, under-the-table Mexican houseguests, a planed-and-sanded family life, baby powder, and knowing what to do with writing equipment.  I believe in love, even if I get injured a thousand times before I find it again.  He is of the opinion that pain and anger are signs of weakness, and that crying is just a cheap way to get happy by boosting endorphins.  He believes that love makes us vulnerable, and to me vulnerability is proof that I am fully human and living as hard as I can in this perilous world.  I believe that everyone is a little bit good, and he says that everything good people do is selfishly motivated.

My suspicion is that we are just looking through different sides of the same glass-bottomed boat, and he thinks I’m overly optimistic.  I may well be, but I’m stubborn so I love him anyway with a few inextricable fibers of my deepest core.  Not because he’s opposed on principle to most of the things I say, but because I think secretly we are the same.

***

At the risk of spending another New Years’ Eve falling asleep in front of pirated copies of Avatar, I emailed my legendary great-uncle and asked him what kinds of parties San Francisco throws to Hail the New Year.  “I’m always down for a good adventure,” he wrote.

(As it was, New Years’ Eve-Eve mainly consisted of telling stories, over one of the few bottles of wine I have ever seen my parents drink, about the adventures he, Karen, and their friend Helen had had in times past.  Once, when we lived in the U.S. Virgin Islands, they set out in their sailboat to visit us on St. Croix.  At that time Hurricane Mitch was taking its whirlwind tour through the Caribbean, and based on their projected course we were sure they would stay out of each other’s way.  But they didn’t show up on time in Christiansted harbor.  Weeks later we learned that they did indeed do battle with Mitch’s raging 20-foot waves and had to limp back into the treacherous harbors of Nassau, in the Bahamas, for several months of repairs.  They never did make it to St. Croix before we returned to the mainland.)

When I wrote back a few weeks later saying I couldn’t actually stay in San Francisco for the holiday and had made other plans, his response was that I’d let him off the hook, because he’s not as in-the-loop as he used to be about fun parties in the city.  He let me in on a theory: “Perhaps at some subliminal level young people stay up past midnight because the alternative is going to bed lonely.  Whereas in my case I get to go to bed with a friend of the opposite sex, which is fun (I mean Karen, of course, just so we don't start any odd rumors.)  We often watch the ball descend in N.Y. and then say good night to whomever and head for our own bed.”

***

At 0:00 hours on January 1, 2011, I watched the ball descend in N.Y. and then (after a few more hours) said good night to whomever and headed for one of the unclaimed beds, futons, or couches at my friend Zach’s house in Hudson, Wisconsin.  I was, and still am, young, single, and surrounded by good friends.

We are opposite in many ways.  Some of us are blond and some of us have dark hair (or hair the color of spiced rum).  Some of us like sweet champagne and some like dry; some like Phish and some like Ke$ha.  Some of us get horribly hungover and some of us drink empty champagne bottles full of water before we go to bed.  But at the end of the day we’re all toasting and kissing each other in disbelief that, this time next year, we will be scattered.

Someday, I’ll figure out my morning-person/night-person dilemma and meet someone who is the opposite.  He will also be a Saver rather than a Spender; a scientist, probably shy, probably conservative; and a pessimist who likes driving, knickknacks, and politics.  And when I shake his hand for the first time I will feel my extra protons plug like a puzzle piece in between his extra electrons, and everything will become right in the universe.  Some people call it love, but I don’t believe a word of it.