Big Spender

It’s not a recent occurrence, but money, much like boyfriends or good hair, never has a way of sticking with me. I’ve never been able to hold onto a bill of currency for more than a week — and that’s if my internet’s out or I’m in a coma — because once I have my hands on it, I start thinking about all the things that I’d like to have.

The list of offenses is a long one. If these things were necessities, then, sure, I’d say, why not? But as it turns out, each time I get a craving it’s for something that I neither need nor have any real use for: the new leather laptop bag for when I take my trips to nowhere; the full-sized digital piano awaiting the day it plays an entire song. Some of the lesser examples include armies of barely-used computer mice, each one just a little more stylish or feature-laden than the one before.

Ever since I was small, I’ve been prone to this kind of thing. I’ve always liked the rush of buying, the feeling of trading in those raggedy dollars for something new and shiny. And still, even now that the pocket-wrinkled bills of my youth have been replaced by little plastic cards, the desire remains the same. At the age of seven, I remember, I pleaded with my mother for the go-ahead to buy a Spider-Man action figure. “But I really want it,” I said, tugging at her hand as she tried to pull me out of the store.

“Don’t you already have one like that?” she asked.

I did. Wanting another didn’t make sense, but the six dollar bills in my pocket were screaming at me, a far cry from the earlier whispers that had first given me the idea. I’d gotten the bills from little chores done around my great-grandparents’ house, and though not inherently sentimental, the money, my mother thought, should have been kept and used for something like, I don’t know, feeding starving children or starting my own college fund.

In the end, though, facing a teary, blubbering child and store clerks rolling their eyes at a scene they’d witnessed more times than they could remember, she relented, and the elation I felt on the way home, tearing open the packaging like a starving man might rip through a sandwich wrapper, gave way three days later to the wish that I had some money for a new toy, a better toy. Something that would kick these twin Spider-Men’s ass.

When my brother, Matt, grew to be the age where he could start wanting things, I thought that together we might be unstoppable. The combined power of our desire to buy would overwhelm our mother’s defenses and render her powerless against us. Much to my surprise and dismay, I discovered that my brother was, in fact, a saver, the equivalent of a safety deposit box guarding its money, while I was a broken automated teller machine belching out dollar bills.

Long before he was able to get a job my brother would stash away his weekly allowances and the random, generous spurts of income our grandmother would grant us. Surely my parents, my mother in particular, thought this was spectacular. Finally! she must have thought, sighing as if heaving a heavy burden from her shoulders. Gruesome fears of taking me into a toy store gave way to dreams of Matt someday becoming an investor, of playing the stock market twenty or thirty years down the road from the stashes of dollars and change he kept beneath his bed or in his closet. “That’s good,” I would hear her coo when Matt told her about wanting to save up to buy something big. “Or I’ll just keep it,” he would sometimes say, “for later.” And I would watch as my mother melted.

To this day, my brother has an uncanny ability to keep himself from splurging, whereas I will find myself willingly setting down a much-needed tube of toothpaste in favor of a set of collectible Japanese Domo-kun figurines or a rhyming dictionary for when I one day pick up writing poetry. I can say, though it shames me, that I have gone without deodorant for the sake of a DVD box set.

There would be times, growing up, when I would look at Matt and wonder why he was saving up. Was it for the latest game console? No, he’d gotten that for Christmas. Was it a new TV? No, the one he had was fine. Was it some upcoming financial disaster I knew nothing about? Maybe, though it seemed both unlikely and unsettling that no one would have told me. Not knowing drove me insane, and so I began plotting ways to beat him at his own game.

In my college years I discovered the trojan horse of credit cards. It was nice being approved with my virgin credit ratings for what seemed like an instant surplus, a savings without the pesky detail of having to deprive myself. Three years later, under a mountain of debt and with nothing much to show for it aside from a pair of stonewashed Ralph Lauren jeans and a cozy country-style bedspread, I watched as my brother used cash to buy his own computer. Then, later, his new twenty-six inch flat-screen TV arrived, a nice addition to a bedroom already accented with video game systems bearing brands like Microsoft and Sony. As month by month I chipped away at the bills coming to our house like letters from an obsessive fan, I grew to envy him and the seeming ease with which he had it all.

When he was away at work or school, I would ransack his room, overturning his mattress and rifling through his desk drawers, looking like a madman for his cache of wealth.

It has to be here, I thought. Where is he keeping all of it?

I didn’t know what I would do if I found anything, though I was fairly certain I just wanted to see his money, to find out if he really was saving or if it was through some kind of magic that he was able to get all of this stuff. But, after what felt like hours of searching, I found nothing. In my mind I saw his wallet, then, stuffed beyond its capacity, his back pocket bulging like a tumor. Of course he would keep it on him. Angry and bitter, I returned to my room to tally up how many payments I had left before my seldom-used stereo system and the notebook computer with the failing keys were paid off. The answer was months, and I wondered how many other things my brother would be able to buy before I was able to scrape up enough dough just to put my car through a much-needed oil change.

By the time I was free from my debts, my brother was swimming in money, spending sixty dollars a pop on video games and, a few towns over, singlehandedly keeping a small paintball gun shop in business, while my car stubbornly refused to start on most days and I was forced to take out a loan to get a new one.

On the way home from the dealership, the weight of my financial responsibilities just starting to sink in, I rode with my father in silence. We had exhausted talk of the new car’s details — gas mileage, style, its little features — and now we concentrated on our respective roles: my father focusing on the road, and me thinking, How the hell am I going to pay for this? I might be able to turn tricks downtown if I were just a little more in shape, I considered, watching a string of fast food restaurants pass by. My stomach rumbled, but I told myself the hunger wasn’t there. Besides, the sooner I was out of the car, any car, the better.

At home, back in my room, I sat surrounded by the things that were finally, truly mine. I listened to the sound of my brother playing his video games, and as the sound of explosions rattled my walls, I took out a piece of notebook paper and jotted down the amount of the loan. Making note of my income felt like admitting I had some terrible illness; it left me feeling hopeless and, worse, poor.

Sitting there, portioning away paychecks I’d not yet received, I had to consider my ways: the gratuitous spending, the petty need to compete, and the consuming jealousy blinding me to everything I did have. I pushed back from my desk and looked around. Could this be enough? I wondered. And I told myself it was. If my bank account was any indicator, it would have to be.