kicking it old skool

I’m a millionaire. Officially. Before 30.

This concept is so bizarre (and very much recent). So much so, that the spell checker keeps correcting me on “millionaire”. I don’t even know how to spell the word.

I guess everybody can be a millionaire nowadays. In my instance, I can join the club in South African Rands. The exchange rate took a major beating (in Sterling’s favour) the last week. So yesterday I checked www.x-rates.com , punched in my loose cash I have lying around and presto! R1, 002, 019.87. Today though, it’s more like R980,987.66. But still, for a day, I was part of the club.

You could always go Pound to Zim dollars, and be a Squintillion-Quadrillionaire. But that’s purely academic. What made it a big deal for me is that I have achieved exactly the goal I wanted to achieve in coming to London. That being: to be able to buy a house in Cape Town… cash.

When you grow up it’s a big deal to be a millionaire. It is society’s accepted yardstick for wealth. I have matured enough to know that this is silly. By that same yardstick, I may be considered “rich”. But I am much wealthier in other terms, friends, family, opportunities, health. I could go on.

I’ve been pondering my financial success and today it dawned on me. I have one person to thank my successful financial mind set, a very old friend of mine. My dad, obviously will also be on top of that list. But my mate had the inside track, a very hands on lesson learnt every Saturday, at Tygervalley shopping centre, in Durbanville.

Back in its heyday, they had the Mississippi (another spell checker freak out on that one…) Detour, a river boat themed food court. They had half this massive boat stuck out of the wall, with working water wheels and all. The top floors had slot machines (where us kids couldn’t go) and art galleries (where us kids wouldn’t want to go). The star of the show at the food court though was Wonderland, a huge games arcade (by 1992 –ish standards) . Next to that, on the very lowest level of “the boat” was Milky Lane. It’s still there today, though they’ve done away with the New Orleans theme and redecorated. Wonderland now includes a bowling alley.

At any rate, we pretty much grew up there, nagging our folks to give us a lift to Tygervalley and of course bank roll our addictions (the folks would take turns taking to and picking up from the centre). We mostly used our pocket money, hard earned for doing chores around the house and what not.

So we’d be in there for 3, maybe 4 hours every Saturday, playing games till our little paws where red. The other treat of the day was getting a dipped ice cream cone from Milky Lane. My favourite was caramel dipped, with a flake (how luxurious!) and sprinkled nuts. No sugar cone. That was for REALLY special occasions. It would set you back a whole R4, which in game token terms was a lot! But it was worth it.

And here’s where it happened: my friend would almost always, no matter what, save up for one of these cones. The simplicity and simultaneous inherent complexity of this train of thought hit me between the eyes today. Even though you’re still spending your money, it was money earned (most of the time) and the concept of blowing it all away on quick, cheap thrills vs. saving some of it for something you really want… well, it goes against everything a 11 year old should be thinking. I always took into account that I couldn’t just spend spend spend, because I needed to keep some money left for next time (for in case I don’t do my chores) and a little for that damned ice cream!

Fast forward 17 years, and I’m still saving up for that ice cream, knowing deep down the sacrifices I make now will pay delicious dividends in the end.

So me thinks I shall be giving him a call today, and thank him wholeheartedly for the money lessons learnt on a Steam boat cruising down the Mississippi with caramel and ice cream dripping all over my jeans.

[G], out

And the cats in the cradle and the silver spoon
little boy blue and the man on the moon.