The Reality of $20

For a brief moment, I’d like to invite you on a trip back to 1988. When I was in college, my parents used to give me $20 a week for spending money. Granted, I was on scholarship, lived in the dorm, and my meals were paid for. (Well, my normal three meals a day – not the 2 AM – after the bars closed down - eating frenzy that put 20 pounds on my already big enough butt.)

Anyhoo! Knowing full well that $20 wasn’t a lot of money, I could stretch it beautifully. My friend Rebecca had the car (Becca I know that I am indebted to you for the rest of my life for gas money and back seat road sign stealing repairs.) Since she had the car, and I was a huge moocher, I didn’t pay for gas. Becca would pick me up Sunday evening and drive us both to school. On the way, we would detour a bit and pay our weekly homage to the bootlegger. The bootlegger lived in a house with a circle drive. We simply pulled up, blew the horn, and someone would appear and take our order. $5 later, I had a six pack of hot bud light. (It was college, ok?! We drank it hot if we had to.)

That was Sunday and I had $15 left. No mater what happened, come hell, high water, a natural disaster, or war I needed to save another $5 for Wednesday night. That was Shenanigans night. That was ladies night - $5 to get in the door with a fake ID, and all the beer you could drink for free. Done. If I didn’t have $5 of my $20 left, that meant I was borrowing $50 cents from every person I knew to cover my cover – so to speak. Believe me, I have done this before. Once or twice is charming, more than that is not cool. After a night of partying on Wednesdays we usually stopped off at some Crusty Crab along the drive back for food. Thursdays were hangover days and that meant grease. Which usually meant lunch at the all you can eat Pizza Inn buffet for $3.50. By Thursday night I was completely out of money, but headed home on Friday for the weekend.

Why am I telling you this? I suppose as a reality check. In 1988, $20 bought me all the fun I had to pay for in a week. The rest was mooched and free. Yesterday $20 bought me 5 gallons of gas. Not even a half a tank, folks. If yesterday were 1988, I would have been screwed. Perhaps the lack of funds would have forced me to stay in my dorm and study. Maybe the reality check is not so much that $20 doesn’t go very far these days…. but that if I had studied the first time around instead of partying like a rock star, I wouldn’t still be taking classes today.