Everything I Needed to Learn About Fiscal Responsibility I Learned at the High School Dance

All right, so this has been a long time in coming. But I’m just stunned that financial responsibility in this country has dropped to an all-time low and we’ve gotten to the point where payment has just become optional. OPTIONAL. Seriously, you don’t have to pay for that. Take it. Put it on your card. Take two while you’re at it. Just run the bill right up, have two of everything for all it matters, and then just decide not to pay that credit card bill. Because payment is optional. In fact there’s nothing they can really do about it to make you pay, plus you can go to a counseling service who will nogotiate with the credit card company to have your principal lowered, and your interest rate slashed if not halted. So it’s all legal. You got away with it, you totally scored. Give yourself a high five while watching your two new plasma TVs. And people won’t even look down on you because you’re a VICTIM. Victim of greedy credit card companies trying to charge you interest rates on money you spent (that you didn’t have) and you didn’t bother to read the fine print on.

Now I wouldn’t generally call myself a stickler for the rules. Rules in my book are pretty much guidelines that are open for interpretation. I’m certainly a law-abiding citizen for the most part, but I may or may not choose to ‘Walk on the Grass’ if I need to, I park in the tow zone in a pinch, and I have been known to run with scissors. However, no matter what light you look at it in, if you take something as your own and don’t pay for it, that’s stealing. No getting around it. Even if you get a slick talker to have it negotiated away, you’ve taken something that wasn’t yours and didn’t pay the asking price. Why not just run into the store and grab it-- cut out the middle man?

I used to work with a friend of mine who owns a small business. He is a very good, hard-working and honest man. He put much of his family’s savings into building a nice little company. So I was disgusted when, time after time, people just decided not to pay for computer parts we supplied. Just not gonna pay. “We don’t have the money, we’re not going to pay.” And yet they kept their doors open, serving their own customers, buying more parts from other people, but no money came our way. We were small, not very powerful, and after all payment is optional. I was outraged and urged my friend to take them to small claims court. And we did. Months and months and months, and thousands of dollars in lawyers fees later we got a claim from a judge. Elation! We had won! Of course we had won, there was no disputing they took the parts and didn’t pay. So where was our money? Ah that was the bad news. Even with a court document, there was really no way to make them pay. After months of them not making their payment deadlines we had to take them BACK to court. More lawyer fees. Only to have them then declare operating bankruptcy, where they could keep their doors open but didn’t have to pay us. We never did get all the money back, especially not the lawyers fees.

I don’t understand how anyone can argue against the ideal that people should be responsible for their own purchases. People used to care about being deadbeats and felt bad about sticking others with their mess. Shirking your payments is like peeing in the pool. You know it’s disgusting, you know you shouldn’t do it and yet it happens all the time. And everyone around you suffers for it.

This reminds me of those high school dances we used to have; if you’ve forgotten, let me take you back: The girls are totally spruced up, spent all month picking out their dresses, all day doing their hair and makeup. The guys look like they just woke up and shoved on a wadded up tux. We crossed our fingers that the white limo would pick us up (Cause that was the coolest!) to take us to some expensive restaurant we weren’t nearly mature enough to go to and where the waitstaff groaned and fought over who had to serve us. When the menus came, one girl (for anonymity’s sake, let’s call her “Saige”) nearly asphyxiates on an ice cube when she saw the entrée prices. Saige had three brothers in college and her mom had gone without anything new for herself all year so Saige could have an expensive dress and ride in the limo with everyone else. Saige had brought all the money she earned that month working at Mailboxes Etc to pay for dinner. Saige made the very, very astute snap judgement that calimari appetizers and grilled halibut were not remotely worth 16 hours of bubble-wrapping packages and decided to stick to free breadsticks and a side salad for dinner.

Now we all know where this is going don’t we? We’ve all been at that table. Five of the guys ordered the Surf N Turf special (so they could pick up the lobster and pretend to make it talk) and nine Cokes (at $2.80 each with no free refills). And when the bill comes, one of these charmers declares that it’s just ‘easiest’ to split it evenly ten ways. Half of the table looks delighted, the other half squirm uncomfortably. Saige chokes on the sugar packet she was eating for dessert. After a few awkwardly silent moments, she finally feels compelled to say, “Um…mine was only $7.95. Why should I pay $35?” And this, Ladies and Gentlemen is when all hell breaks loose.

“Dang, Saige, why do you have to be so freaking cheap! Just pay it so we can go.”

“Yeah, it’s too hard to break it all up. And you always have tons of money, Saige-- God, you’re greedy! By the way, I only have ten bucks on me, so everyone’s gonna have to put in an extra five for mine.” Saige eyes Lobster-boy’s wrist and sees what must be his 19th new Swatch Watch that month. She thinks she may have an idea why he’s always broke.

“Saige, let’s just not make a big thing about it. We might as well just pay it and go.”

This is the precise moment Saige paid $40 to learn a very valuable lesson—that the world is filled at least halfway with people who are perfectly willing to freeload and readily eager to call you cheap or greedy when you protest.

I wish the rest of us could get out of this mess for 40 bucks. But that’s not gonna happen. We’re forced to pay trillions to bail out companies that acted irresponsibly with their money, only to see the bailout money used to pay for private jets, luxury trips and probably more Swatch Watches. Soon, if things continue, we will lose the level of Health Care we’ve been diligently bubble-wrapping all those packages to pay for, in exchange for a lower standard of care for the masses.

Now I don’t want to hear everyone howling about how I don’t care about health care for the poor and what about the children and all that. Well I want children to have health care. I really do. And there should be government programs and governement funded hospitals that provide care for people who can’t afford it (Which there ARE!). But I don’t feel like we all need to chip in for health care for people who snuck into this country illegally and strategically had a child here and are now suing THIS country—where they’ve never legally applied for citizenship or paid taxes—for the right to stay here. Yes, they are suing us. Why do they even have access to our judicial system? And who do you think will be footing the bill for that court case? “Dang Paige, why do you have to be so freaking cheap! You always have money, don’t be so greedy! I need a new plasma TV and I’m a victim!”

Just for the record, I want to give you an update on our little friend Saige. I happen to have it on good authority that she grew up to be quite a generous person. She regularly gives money to charity and has a very tender heart for children whose parents are freaking morons and misspend their money away instead of providing for their kids. She wants everyone to have access to education and health care. But she noticed that people tend to give more when it is from the heart, instead of when it is pried unjustly from their hands. And the people who give the most are the rarely the ones with their palms out, screaming about how this country owes them something more. And Saige also still has a seething hatred for freeloaders.