Money. Did I miss the meeting on money? Was there a class everyone went to, or an assembly, or a notice read out in registration or something? Was it on a Thursday? I could never be arsed making it in on time on a Thursday. Thursdays are the disoriented pensioner of the week. It’s easy not to give a shit about them.
But yeah, I've got no idea how money works.
This would seem a perfect (well, not perfect; I'm not that arrogant. Plus I definitely said 'Thursday' too many times) segue into a blog about the incomprehensible financial situation Europe is in at the minute, but I'm afraid I'm pitching my ignorance a little way above the 'not-getting-the-whole-Euro-thing' level. I don't understand money at all. Full stop.
Like, what is it? Isn't it all done with computers now? What happened to the paper squares and metal circles when we get to the bits where it is done on computers? Who pays the people who make the money? Are they even paid in money? If I judiciously draw a Hitler 'tash on the queen and print NICE PUBE-BEARD, MONKEY BOY in capitals on Darwin's head every time I find a tenner, how long before I'm arrested? And for what? Treason? And so on.
As such, I find it hard to jump on the whole banker-bashing bandwagon that's been rolling around for a couple of years now. I've no doubt the bankers are fucking us over, but all it would only take one twonk in a tie and a few hours of G.C.S.E Economics under his belt to ask 'but how are they really responsible?' before I crumbled and clutched him by his sensibly-chosen Marks & Spencer corduroys and begged that he asked me something about poetry instead. Because I've no idea.
All this means I've developed an uneasy relationship with money over the years; a confused hatred mingled with a sense of awe and love at its inaccessible omnipotence. Such as you might feel towards a molesting parent, or God.
I've been able to muddle by more or less unscathed by this ignorance, but it is troubling. I bet my bank can't even imagine the power it has over me. It sends me statements every so often, and administrative letters about online accounts and passwords and other crap, and I never read them. They send me forms and I never return them. If they suddenly announced a mandatory £1000 quid fine for anyone in the star sign Leo, for example, I'd just lie down and take it. For all I know it's a pretty reasonable deal.
That's the other thing about money; we never talk about it.
Talking about money is one of the few nationwide faux-pas we hold. I guess it’s because we still have a class system we’re all desperate to ignore, and we float around on the notion that everyone’s basically okay and poor people are only found in Charles Dickens novels and the smellier parts of Africa, but to bring up relative wealth and incomes is to blunder into an upmarket dinner party with your cock hanging out whistling the German national anthem. It’s just not British.
Now; I’m middle-class. Almost painfully so. I’m Pesto on Rye. I’m a Volvo on a sandstone driveway. I’m David Mitchell and Andrew Marr in a bath of pine-nut hummus. Despite all my efforts as a social pioneer and class crusader, I’ve ended up with friends both from home and at Uni who are, by and large, in a similar economic bracket. There’s a scale in there, sure, but not a huge one. But here’s the thing. I’ve no idea how much money any of them have.
I’m by no means hard-off, but not having a job, and having parents that have always made a point of only giving me what I need to subsist on (which they are of course entirely right in doing – hi Mum!) I can’t be cavalier about how much I spend. What I didn’t count on was the sheer amount of off the cuff expense Uni life would demand.
“£5 quid club entry? Of course! £7 for a student play? Sure! £10 for a birthday present? Why not? £12 quid for a place on a curry night? Fucking bargain! Tell you what, in future, why don’t I just shove all the notes in my wallet up my sphincter every morning and then I can just waddle around whilst you pick them up whenever they flop out! Job’s a good ‘un!”
I really need to be better at saying no to people, but it’s hard, because knowing I’m not particularly poorer than they are, to imply that they’re a frivolously privileged cash-crapper seems unfair. For all I know they could spend every holiday saving kids from burning buildings or tossing off pigs into buckets just to be able to seem carefree in term time. What we could do with, really, is a little more clarity.
In the meantime, I’m debating taking my anorak and my cardboard sign and shacking up with the big issue seller across the street. Even though I know that if anyone does shell out anything I’ll just confusedly stare at it like a monkey holding an iPhone dock before spending it on Tennents Super. Life is grand.
