“That’ll be $67.53,” she said. I handed her my TJ Maxx gift card, but I didn’t really care how much of the total I had to pay on my own. I had plenty of money, especially after all the Christmas gifts. I think the remainder was thirty-something, but I didn’t care. I simply hadned her the plastic debit card, which I knew had more than enough to cover it.

As I stepped out of the store and onto the downtown sidewalk, two men in their 50s were crouching on the pavement, jingling fast food drink cups that had a few coins in them. The sight is neither common nor rare, it just exists. Occassionally I’ll stop and offer a dollar, but today I lied and said I had nothing. The truth was that I didn’t want to whip out my roll of cash and reveal the two $50 bills.

I made my way to my car - a nice four door Sedan that my parents pretty much paid for - and drove to the parking garage exit where a cheery attendant asked for $3.50. The normal cheap city garage was full, but I didn’t mind the more expensive private garage; $3.50 was chump change in my book. I could’ve walked from my apartment which was less than a mile away, but why bother? Gas is cheap and, like I said, the parking fee was low, at least for me.

This shopping trip was preceded by a nice lunch with ITA brethren Zach, Eric and PunchTheBag, where I doled out $10 for a meal. When the day’s errands were over I didn’t return to work. Why? I don’t have/need a job, at least not until this summer, when I begin my clerkship at the law firm. Granted, I could get a job doing trivial short-term stuff somewhere, but why bother? I don’t need the money. So I went home and cleaned my apartment, surfed the internet, and read a few hundred pages from a novel. I was an unproductive citizen doing whatever I felt like doing.

In short, my day was one of luxury, where I did everything I wanted without concern for my safety or material ability to do whatever I wanted. In spite of this (or more likely because of it), I had a headache for most of the day. Each time I spent so much as a penny, or failed to be a productive citizen, my thoughts turned toward southeast Asia and the victims of the tsunami.

The tsumani victims are hard to ignore. Not only have they suffered an unexpected natural disaster of mind-blowing proportions, but even before it struck many of them lived a desolate life that was most often spent acquiring essentials like food, housing and clothing. They weren’t completely hopeless, but there’s no doubt that a day like mine would be as foreign to some natives as a Martian alien’s would be to me. The point is, I knew of their desolation before the disaster, and now it’s even more pronounced. This thought never left my mind, and yet I never altered my behavior either. I just thought about it…over and over, without necessarily changing or doing anything.

And so here I am, waking from my queen size bed in my up-scale, downtown two bedroom apartment which I have all to myself, and I’ve still done virtually nothing. I’ve donated some money to the Red Cross, but it was chump change. It was as meaningful as my wasteful decision to drive a few blocks and park in a garage. This is my story, and I am not alone.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 31st, 2004 at 9:34 am by Mystery Man and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.