post the hundred-forty-sixth, 2013

as i may have told you before, my BFF in grade school was a blonde, blue-eyed beauty called "jennifer leigh". although her sleek silvery-blonde sheet of hair and startlingly blue eyes far eclipsed my mousy-haired, four-eyed, plainness, we shared a fondness for playacting (land of the lost!) and harassing our younger brothers.

you know how sometimes a thing will happen -- especially when you're a kid -- and it's minuscule, less than an aside to the rest of the world, but it makes A Big Impression on you? well this one time when i was maybe 9 or so, her mom was putting jenny's clothes into the warsher and i was there in the basement waiting on jenny to get down from upstairs, when her mom finds a dollar in jenny's pocket. she unfolds it and laughs and says something about how she always has to check jenny's pockets, but i hardly hear her over the noise of my brain being utterly stunned that anyone could have a dollar in her pocket and not know it. pluswise, how could my BFF jennifer leigh be one of those girls who has a dollar in her pocket and doesn't know it? right then i realized there was more difference between us than hair colour.

fast forward to earlier this week. as i was clearing the clutter from my wallet, what to my wondering eyes should appear but a bit more than one hundred and sixty five dollars. whaaat?? one hundred and sixty five freaking dollars! firstly, i don't carry that kind of cash. (do i?) secondly, i am not the kind of person who doesn't know what's in her wallet. (am i?)

working hard to think over the noise of my brain being utterly stunned that anyone could have 165 dollars in her wallet and not know it, i reconstructed the story: i'd cashed two pay-back checks and a disbursement voucher -- and summarily stuffed the cash into my wallet. i like to cash pay-back checks because it's free money. you've already paid the whatevers and you get paid back. woo! free money! disbursement vouchers are just another form of pay-back check, so - woo to that, too!

so, i reconstructed the story, but still haven't reconstructed my view of myself to absorb the fact that i am the kind of person who carries that kind of cash and doesn't even know it.