If I Had a Lot More Money Than I Do Right Now . . .
November 15, 2007
I've been guilty for the last several years of pretending that if I had more money—real money—I wouldn't change. Like most Americans who are obliged to work, I'm always several thousand dollars in debt or a few dollars in the clear, then back again. I always stay close enough to the shore that I don't drown. Having developed such a profound respect for the abyss of financial insolvency, I'm almost incapable of imagining that if I found myself with many, many millions of dollars—mine to keep—tomorrow, I wouldn't go on living the way I've always lived, just in case. Risks would be limited to the essentials. I'd buy new t-shirts and socks and boxers more often—a sort of accelerated refreshing of the daily uniform, and only because (a) it would save on laundry, and (b) I enjoy shopping at Target, where I can look at the smartly designed household knickknacks. Perhaps I'd get some practical necessities for the home. An iron, for example—maybe a model that features a scratch-resistant platinum-coated soleplate. My t-shirts, well cared for, might last longer. Or maybe a cone-shaped handheld vacuum in royal blue, to extend periods between real vacuuming sessions and to give me an illusion of living well. To reduce trips to the grocery store, I'd order pizza more often and tip a minimum of thirty percent—out of gratitude. But aside from those things, I think I have everything I need right now, unless you count the things that I'll need tomorrow—like more toilet paper and garbage bags and pasta and diced, canned tomatoes with garlic, basil, and oregano. For these, I might switch to brand names and graduate to the organic bins in the produce section, but such changes would hardly change me.
But I'm lying to myself. I wouldn't stop there, and I know it. To prove it, I've put together this table, which I composed and edited under the influence of sodium pentothal.
| THE HYPOTHETICAL INFLUENCE OF MONEY ON A TYPICAL AMERICAN CITIZEN | ||
|---|---|---|
| BEFORE (enough money to pay the bills most months) | AFTER (extremely rich) | |
| Car | 1996 base-model Toyota Corolla (standard shift; no a/c, but in-dash cassette player), on long-term loan from spouse in return for shuttling kids around | 2008 Subaru Impreza hatchback, base model, with standard shift and, I would assume, a/c and, at the very least, some digital music playback capabilities |
| Food | Lots of anything I want, twenty-four hours a day, from any one of hundreds of sources, the sole mission of which is to sell tempting treats for the convenience of the local populace and at prices that reflect huge government agricultural subsidies and a worldwide supply of petroleum whose flow is ensured by military force, if necessary | Lots of anything I want, but delivered to my door more often than before; more organic produce (in case it's good for my health or that of the environment); more name brands (e.g., clearly superior products like Clausen pickles and, to clean up after snacks and mealtimes, Cascade dishwasher detergent and rinse aid and Bounty paper towels) |
| Entertainment | Internet, cable television, books, DVDs, LPs, CDs, cassette tapes, videocassettes, cell phone, public parks, snow-covered hills, and, in the summertime, public swimming areas | Internet, cable television, occasional calls to those phone sex lines that I've always wondered about, and most of the diversions mentioned in the "poor" column; I'd also probably get one of those portable hard drives that can play music, but only because they've become so very small and convenient (though I would avoid talking about, for example, "my iPod"; glib terminology thought up in a boardroom by happy, shiny multimillionaires makes me uncomfortable) |
| Home | Big enough to accommodate family members and including a kitchen and a bathroom and a place for in-house laundry; yard optional; repairs done on an emergency basis | Very large and extraordinarily well built, with several staircases and many rooms, all of them finished and many of them with wall-to-wall bookshelves, trap doors, and other special touches; situated on several acres of wooded land |
| Apparel | T-shirts and shorts; running shoes; socks; boxer shorts; assorted, functional outerwear, the kind that will last forever; and two pairs of pants | New t-shirts and new shorts; new running shoes; new socks; new boxer shorts; outerwear whose main function is to look good; two pairs of pants; a couple of extremely nice suits, just in case |
| Watch | Casio G-Shock (solar, atomic) | Same |
| Wedding rings | The ones that were bought for the wedding | Same |
| Eyewear | Prescription sunglasses when there's enough daylight to justify wearing them; regular prescription glasses for driving, using a computer, and watching TV | Same |
| Exercise | Jogging up and down hills almost every day, not necessarily to stave off the inevitable decline of old age but to increase the likelihood that when I do drop dead I will be relatively strong and fit; summertime swimming | Jogging up and down hills; summertime swimming and, especially if my knees give out someday, wintertime swimming, either thanks to a move to tropical beachfront property or at someplace like the YMCA |
| Employment | Anything related to reading and writing | Same |
| Drinks | Tap water and drinkable domestic canned beers (i.e., no ales, stouts, microbrews, or anything unduly heavy or bitter) | Filtered tap water and drinkable beers, but including the occasional bottled and imported drinkable beers |
| Travel | Once-yearly excursions, generally involving scattered family members who are willing or able to help cover some of the expenses | Twice-yearly excursions, one of the family type and the other just for the chance to experience the mobility that is the hallmark of modern man |
| Health care | Exercise | Exercise and regular visits to a dermatologist, just in case |
| Miscellaneous | Monthly trips to the car wash | Weekly trips to the car wash, more or less, depending on weather conditions and the presence or absence of road salt |
It should be evident from the data that I, assuming I'm a typical American, would be spending many hundreds of thousands of dollars more each year if I were rich. For one thing, estate-like homes on huge, wooded lots don't grow on trees.
© 2010 Russell David Harper