So far today has been pretty uneventful.
I’ve spent most of it working on a picture, though not the picture I’d started last week, or even the Heroic Portrait I did last week and which the customer has asked me to provide a different background for, but rather another picture that…well, I don’t think I’ll bother saying anything about it, as a picture is said to be worth a thousand words, and when I finish the picture I will then be posting a 1,000 word essay in the form of the finished piece.
Or something.
Yesterday when I got the mail I discovered three things:
1. There was a class action lawsuit against my credit card company.
2. By virtue of being a cardholder, I was a plaintiff in the suit.
3. The case had been settled.
I learned this by opening an envelope containing a letter with words to that effect and which also containing my piece of the settlement pie: a check for $3.44.
I think I’ll finally just dive in and buy that HDTV now, seeing as how this suit has made me independently wealthy.
I mean, WTF? How does that even make it worthwhile to pursue a lawsuit? Sure, some lawyers probably got a pretty big chunk of change, but if you’re going to make a judgment against a company, you should make sure that it’s big enough that the people being represented will still manage to get more than $3.44 even after the lawyers finish picking the judicial carcass dry.
Guess it’s a good thing I didn’t even know about the case before getting the check because it would have sucked to have gotten my hopes up.
Actually, I think I do recall getting notified about the case a long time ago, and, realizing that I’d probably get something like $3.44 out of it if the case went in our favor, promptly forgot about it.
It’s strange to think that there was a time when $3.44 could have made a big difference in my life. I mean, that would have been about enough for a pack of cigarettes, or could get me most of the way to buying a liter of so-bottom-shelf-it’s-practically-in-the-basement vodka.
(Seriously, I used to drink vodka that was actually that dirt cheap. Like five bucks a liter.)
Anyway, the point is that such a small sum could have gone a long way for me, once.
Now? Not so much.
And it’s not that my tastes have changed so much (though said tastes no longer include cigarettes or vodka, dirt cheap or otherwise), it’s that I’m in a position where I seldom reach that level of financial desperation.
(Which is nice, but I’d still rather be filthy, stinking rich.)
Thinking about how a little bit of money can mean a lot, I’m reminded of the time early in my marriage in which we were flat broke. Lorie had just gotten off the phone with her mother asking to borrow some money, and we were sitting around feeling depressed and defeated knowing that the check from her mother was still days away from arriving by mail and wondering where our next cigarette was going to come from.
To pass the time, since it wasn’t like we could afford to go out and do anything, Lorie started going through some of the wedding cards we’d gotten when she stumbled upon a $20 bill that had somehow escaped our notice those many months before when we’d gone through all of them.
I can’t remember a time when either of us was happier.
So there’s definitely something to be said for not having much, as it tends to make you appreciate what you have – and what you serendipitously find – so much more.
But actually having money in the bank is still better.
But, in remembrance of leaner times, I will actually deposit my settlement.
After all, I earned it for all of my suffering at the hands of the evil credit card company, apparently. I mean, I must have suffered: they gave me money.
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