Alex Steed
Columnist
Today I am wearing the shirt that I was supposed to buy with the store credit card I’ve been told to use to build credit with which I am to buy a car then a house. But, I’ve spent all this morning worrying that the collar looks funny. Leaving the first button unbuttoned makes it look funny but going down to the second button is almost unheard of and almost trashy if done wrong.
And all of this time I am reading the magazines and watching the commercials that are getting me so fired up about a flaccid collar, I could be managing my finances with a little more care. I could be greeting pre-approved for that loan, shopping for that car, looking for that house and talking to more girls so that I can find that wife but instead I’m wasting my time on all of this vanity.
The nonsensicality doesn’t stop at this level of priority-mismanagement. This is only the beginning of something incomprehensively larger. When I pay the bill for this shirt online (and, of course, the 17 percent financing fee), I’ll sit wondering why it is that if I don’t pay the bill or the next bill or the next and if I stain my credit record just enough, I might go to jail or worse; maybe nobody will lend to me ever again. There’ll be no pre-approved loans, no cars, no house or PTA wife or cute kids or Huxtable or Tanner sitcom-perfect family dream.
I used to work with this cook who told me that he could, for insurance purposes, make my car disappear-no questions asked-for only 500 dollars. He lends money and when you fail to make payment, all he does is beat you up and if you keep “forgetting,” he’ll eventually get someone to track you down and cut a finger off for each week you don’t come through. The same system that manufactures dreams can steal away from you the dreams they talk up so laboriously at your first sign of delinquency and a loan shark only inflicts a little physical pain; the first is legal and the second is not and I can’t figure out how any of this is fair. At least the loan shark is honest about the horrors of his trade.
I’ve spent a lot of time wondering why “The whole world’s going to hell” has become an item of small-talk just like, “The weather’s great, isn’t it?” Wasn’t it a statement of alarm at one time? Wasn’t it like, “The whole world’s going to hell!” and then people sat around, listened to Public Enemy and at least pretended like they wanted to do something about it? Is this still happening and I’m missing it because I’m so busy contemplating the future of my credit history, future car, future house, potential future job as an awe-inspiringly successful loan shark and the current state of my collar?
The more time I spend playing with my collar the more times I ask myself what happened to the precocious little fat kid I used to be. I wonder what happened to the 16-year-old anarcho-sraight-edge vegan and what he eventually turned into. I wonder where the luxuries of looking at everything as black and white went and I can’t seem to figure out who this busy-as-hell, occasionally carnivorous, morally lackadaisical, beer-hungry sissy came from.
Does this collar look straight to you?
Alex Steed can be contacted at [email protected]