endorsement

there is all the difference in the world between paying and being paid. the act of paying is perhaps the most uncomfortable infliction that the two orchard thieves entailed upon us. But being paid—what will compare with it?
--(herman melville, moby dick, chapter 1)

oh the scrounging, sponging, parsimonious bliss of inscribing one's name on the back of a check. THREE checks! three scraps of paper with three-digit numbers neatly inscribed in the miniscule boxes designated for the purpose. we write out checks of payment with a studied air of indifference--rent? oh, yes, that...there you are. scribble our name in the lower right corner, nearly illegible, as if we didn't care but really with the secret hope that the bank will misread it and take it from someone else's account. car insurance? utilities? voilá, pas grave. we saved for it, we know we can take the blow. we disperse the envelopes with cavalier tosses of our well-coiffed heads...for which we paid, as well, so that we could toss them thus stylishly. split ends and mullets spoil the effect we are going for in paying. sniff!...money came, money went...c'est la vie, n’est-ce pas?

but oh, the shameless joy, the curling fingers and ingathering posture that command when we receive our pay. small pretense at indifference now!--about as indifferent as kids under a busted piñata. we tuck the missive away, with a glance over our shoulder, looking at it no more for fear of attracting attention, until we can squirrel away with it in private, and look at the sum with a nod that both affirms its properness and our deserving. the number that gives meaning to our work, the compensation for time spent in flagrant disobedience to our own desires.

how to reconcile this ghoulish pleasure at being paid, with the axiom that the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil? i don’t know that it can be done. but the root is quickly pulled up, when the pay is paid out again.

(first published 7.16.07, 7.45pm)