(All day long I'd biddy biddy bum. If I were a wealthy man.)
My BFF always asserts that she would make a great rich person. I tell her I would make a fabulous tycoon, as well. She says she would take me to the Bahamas and give me enough money to be a full-time writer in exchange for daily neck massages. I, in turn, would buy her a bathing suit for every day of the month and make sure she lives in a place warm enough for her to always wear them comfortably outside all year long. All I ask in return is that she reads what I write and tells me how awesome I am. (We writers are very needy people, for the most part. We might say that we write for truth or our art, but really all we want is to be the most popular kid on the playground.)
We both agree that we would take care of our families and donate to various causes near and dear to our hearts (Save the Kenyan Warthog, Feed the Children Scoop Fritos, etc.). We don't want to end up looking like self-indulgent celebrities, ala Paris Hilton. We want to do something good, something important, with our money, so that when we're boarding our cruise ship to Alaska we feel like we've earned our filet mignon of elk.
(I wouldn't have to work hard. Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum.)
All kidding aside, whenever I or my wife have gotten a bump in salary or paid off a car loan, whenever I anticipate a couple hundred extra dollars a month, I celebrate for a little while. Then I do something stupid, or something stupid happens to me. This summer, I made my last payment on my Mercury Sable and was looking forward to a few, payment-free years. The next Monday, on my way to work, I hit a deer that came bounding out of the darkness, and I totaled my car. (Whenever I tell people this story, they invariably ask the same question: "Did you kill the deer?" Even the policeman at the scene asked me this question. My response is always the same: "I don't give a shit. My car is wrecked.") So, a week-and-a-half later, I was driving around in a brand new car payment.
My point is this: enough is never enough. It will always seem like there's something on which to spend money. A new car. A bigger house. A trip to Florida (or Green Bay). A Wii Fit to tell you every day that you're obese. A box of Cap'n Crunch. I am just as guilty as everyone else. Just check out my Amazon wish list. If Amazon sold small, Caribbean islands, I'd have one in my cart.
(If I were a biddy biddy rich, Yidle-diddle-didle-didle man.)
Today's saint, Katherine Drexel, was once described by newspapers as "the richest nun in the world." The heiress of a wealthy banker, Katherine's income topped out at over $1000 a day in the early 20th century. Now, I'm picturing a nun in Vera Wang habits with Cartier rosaries. Of course, being a saint-in-the-making, Katherine had other plans for her fortune. She established her own order, the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, which was dedicated to "the service of Native and African Americans." By the time she died in 1955 at the age of 97, Katherine had donated 20 million dollars that funded, among other things, 63 schools, including Xavier University, the first Catholic college for African Americans. My research paints her as a "one-woman foundation." She herself answered every request for money she received while still living a life of extreme poverty.
Katherine Drexel was a good rich person. She knew what to do with money: she gave it away. This is something I have a difficult time understanding. If someone started handing me $1000 a day, I don't think I'd open up a newspaper, rub my hands together, and say, "Now, who needs my help?" I harbor this fantasy of becoming really wealthy and then settling a few old scores. One scenario of which I'm particularly fond: buying a bookstore I once worked at and firing the manager whom I disliked. (That manager doesn't even work there any more, but, hey, it's my fantasy.) Perhaps God knows the kind of rich person I'd be, and that's why I earn just enough money to hold the creditors at bay and buy birthday and Christmas presents.
Wealth has little to do with money. I know this. I'm a rich guy. I know this also. As the old saying goes, money can't buy happiness. How about this one: money is the root of all evil? If I had a penny for every adage and proverb about money, I could probably afford that Carribean island.
I'd be the one parked on the beach in the new Ford Freestyle that's not paid off.
(Lord who made the lion and the lamb, You decreed I should be what I am. Would it spoil some vast eternal plan? If I were a wealthy maaaaaaaaaan!)
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