March 14: Some Dough, Blue as Hell, Economic Ignorance

After they left, I started getting sorry that I'd only given them ten bucks for their collection.  But the thing was, I'd made that date to go to a matinee with old Sally Hayes, and I needed to keep some dough for the tickets and stuff.  I was sorry anyway, though.  Goddam money.  It always ends up making you blue as hell.

Yes, this little piece of wisdom from Holden isn't exactly warm and fuzzy.  In fact, it's the opposite of warm and fuzzy.  Cold and prickly, maybe.  Anyway, money, if you don't have enough of it, sucks.  That's what Holden is saying, and I agree with him.

The only time money doesn't make me feel "blue as hell" is when I don't think about it.  When I go on a vacation, I don't think about money.  I will actually walk into a Barnes & Noble, see a book I want, and buy it without worrying about the cost.  I will let my daughter buy hats and clothes she wants.  I eat what I want, where I want, and don't scrutinize the prices on the menus very much.  That's what a vacation is for.  Time off from my normal, day-to-day worries and frustrations.

Of course, I just had a vacation at the beginning of January.  Two full weeks of economic ignorance.  I went out to breakfast with my wife.  I saw The Hobbit at the movie theater, and bought a big buttered popcorn and candy.  I even allowed myself to sleep in until 7 a.m. one day.  It was bliss.

My next vacation is coming at the end of May, when I go downstate with my daughter to her dance competition.  We'll stay at a hotel that's next to a outlet mall.  We'll buy tons of stuff that we really don't need and eat a lot of food that we really can't afford.  It will be a welcome blessing from what I'm experiencing right now, which is economic panic.

Money can make you blue as hell if you let it, as Holden says.

Saint Marty wishes he could be on vacation every day of his life.  He would sleep a heck of a lot better until he filed for bankruptcy.

This pretty much says it all