Broke

I sit at my desk, staring at my computer screen.

Checking account balance: $25.33.

Didn’t I just get paid yesterday?

I mentally go over my financial activity for the previous twenty-four hours. Health insurance payment, Visa card payment, BMG Music order payment… that car insurance payment that I originally thought could wait until next paycheck… my physical therapy session yesterday… my Chi Kung class this morning… that small bag of groceries I picked up this afternoon… the little bit of gas that I put in my car on the way home….

I guess $25.33 sounds about right. Wonderful. And only two more weeks until payday.

I decide to double-check my savings account balance.

$5.13.

As I sit there trying to take this all in, I notice the message light flashing on my phone. I pick it up and hit the correct sequence of buttons to get into my voice mail. I hear an unexpected voice.

“Hey Brian, Tom here. I’m calling to tell you that the party was moved up to tonight instead of next Saturday night. Did I tell you about the party when you came out last time? Yeah, I think I did. Anyway, we’d love to see you here. Things kick off around seven -- I hope you can make it.”

I suddenly remember that the last time I saw Tom he had invited me to a party at his house sometime in January. I’d forgotten all about it though, much less the date that it was supposed to happen.

I delete the message and hang up the phone.

I first met Tom over twenty years ago, through my best friend Greg. I have known Tom for a long time, but I rarely get messages from him. In fact, I hardly talk to him at all outside of his job. Tom runs sound for a prominent local band (not to mention a few other projects on the side), and the few days that he has off from work he typically spends with his wife. In other words, the only time I get to see Tom is when I go out to see the band.

For some reason I find a great deal of humor in my situation. Let’s see… I have no money, less than a ¼ tank of gas in my car, it’s two weeks until payday, and hey -- I’m invited to a party!

I’d planned on staying home tonight, and maybe going through my closet and getting rid of some stuff that I don’t need anymore. I really have to do that before school starts up again. But man, I could sure use a party right about now.

I probably should go.

But wait a minute. I can’t just show up empty handed. I haven’t been to one of Tom and Alicia’s parties since they moved into their new house. I really should bring a bottle of wine or something. And even though I’m sure Tom will have plenty of booze to go around, I’d prefer to bring my own beer. I’m trying to keep a handle on my carbohydrate intake, and I’ve already pushed it with my diet the last few days. I could drink hard liquor but the mix usually tears my stomach up these days. Yeah, I need to bring my own beer.

So let’s see… how can I swing this?

What about my credit card? I know that it was close to being maxed out, but I just made a payment so I should have some money to play with there. I log in to my credit card website.

Available balance: -$26.00.

Son of a bitch! I should not be over my limit right now. Close, yes, but not over!

I check my recent activity and see at least one thing that doesn’t look right. A quick phone call later I find out that my Internet service provider has charged me $10.62 for some “value-added services” that I never requested. Yes, I told the guy on the phone a few weeks ago that he could send me a link to what they were offering, but I never even opened the e-mail and I certainly didn’t agree to any extra services. It didn’t take long for the stern tone in my voice to convince them to refund the charges, but that still didn’t explain why I was over my limit.

With the next phone call I find out that the recent payment that I made to my credit card company would take three working days to process. I thank the nice lady and hang up the phone.

Now I’m going to that party for sure.

Okay, I have $25.33 in my checking account. What the hell -- you can’t take it with you.

I take a shower, put on some fresh clothes, and head out the door. My first stop is the liquor store. I find a decent (but reasonably-priced) bottle of wine and grab a 12-pack of my beer. Total: $20.58.

Tom lives on the opposite side of town, so to be safe I stop at the gas station across the street and top off my gas tank with $3 worth of gas. I then head out to the freeway and to the party.

When I get there I knock on the door, but nobody answers. As I start to walk in Tom himself walks up from the basement to open the door. After we greet each other he comments on my offerings. I hold up the wine in my left hand. “This is for the host," I say. I then hold up the beer in my other hand. “And this is for me." Rather than the chuckle I expected, Tom says “Thanks! I’ll give them to the bartender."

Bartender?

I follow Tom into the kitchen, and after I greet a few people I walk through it and into the spacious three-season “porch”. I put porch in parenthesis because it has a vaulted wooden ceiling with skylights, an Italian tile floor, and a flat screen TV on the wall. As I walk in I see an impromptu bar – with two bartenders – set up in the far corner. There is a tub with at least fifteen different bottles of wine chilling in it, and in front of that is a nice display of the seven different beers they are offering for the evening. Behind the bartenders is a table full of every kind of booze you can imagine – and about ten others that you couldn’t imagine if you thought about it all day.

Within a few moments I notice that my beer is now being offered on the “list”. After retrieving one of them from the bartender I make my rounds and greet all of the familiar faces.

Ten minutes later I’m in the dining room, in a conversation with some guy who does some kind of educational consulting for Microsoft. I think his name is Eric. I meet his wife too, and she is nice. As we’re talking I notice somebody walking by with one of my beers.

Twenty minutes after that I’m watching the football game on the flat screen TV on the porch, along with a bunch of other guys who are far more interested in the outcome of the game than I am. Jacksonville has recently kicked a field goal to put them ahead by two points with thirty-seven seconds left in the game, and Pittsburgh has just returned the ball. People around the room begin making predictions about what will happen. My friend Brad is standing next to me.

“I bet they end up kicking a fifty-two yard field goal to win it," he says. “I bet they turn it over," I say. “Too much pressure.” Basically I’m just talking out my ass. The next play - their first of the drive – Roethlisberger fumbles the ball and Jacksonville recovers. The room erupts with admiration for my undeniable psychic ability.

A half-hour after that I’m in the basement playing “Name That Tune”, with my buddy Greg manning the keyboard in Tom’s recording studio. After easily winning the game (it helps to be familiar with Greg’s repertoire), we all head back upstairs. I notice at least two empty bottles of my brand of beer in the living room as I walk through it.

As I walk back out to the porch for another beer, the female bartender sees me coming and has a bottle ready to go by the time I get there. She continues to do this for the rest of the night. That, my friends, is a true professional.

Forty-five minutes later I’m in a political discussion (a rare occurrence) in the kitchen with Greg’s wife Sandy, eyeing the homemade ravioli but too involved in the conversation to actually dish some up and eat it. Fifteen minutes after that I’m laughing (along with the rest of the room) at how Tom’s dog keeps pouncing on the light reflections from Sandy’s wine glass on the kitchen floor. We entertain ourselves with this show for at least ten minutes.

While standing there, I notice three or four empty bottles of the brand of beer that I brought to the party sitting around the kitchen. After doing some quick math in my head I finally realize that somebody else must have brought the same brand, or they already had it in stock but they hadn’t put a bottle out for display until after I got there. If I had been the only one to bring it, it would have run out a long time ago.

Forty minutes after that I’m back on the porch, having a discussion with two guys that I’ve never met about the merits of Payton Manning as a guest host on Saturday Night Live. The sound is off on the TV, but we don’t seem to need it for our evaluation. Before we are able to reach a consensus we are distracted by a few of the wives standing around in a circle and squeezing each other’s boobs for some unknown reason. This brings our conversation to an abrupt end, and we never reach an agreement.

Hey, we’re guys. What can I say?

An hour after that I find myself regretting a joke that I've made about the size of Tom’s penis. I really didn't need to see that, and especially right next to the food table.

And I still haven’t tried the ravioli.

In spite of some of the silliness, by midnight things are already winding down. Most of the people at the party have kids at home with baby sitters, or have work obligations in the morning. A few of us are still standing around on the porch when Tom comes out with a huge box of ice cream sandwiches. I think it was a twenty-four pack, and I'm pretty sure he bought them at Sam's Club.

It soon becomes apparent that I’ve missed some inside joke about the ice cream sandwiches.

Later, after standing in the kitchen with my jacket on for forty minutes saying goodbye to people, I finally head for the door. Tom stops me in the entryway. “Do you need an ice cream sandwich for the road?” he asks. “Well, I don’t NEED one...” I say, letting my answer hang in the air. Tom slaps one in my hand.

You have to love a party where they give you an ice cream sandwich for the road.

At the doorway I run into a few other guys who are leaving at the same time. When I tell them where I live one of them says, “That has to be at least forty-five minutes away." “Thirty-five,” I predict, “and that is factoring in the road construction at 694 and 35E.” I hadn’t paid attention to the clock on the way up at all, so I really have no idea how long it will take. But I don’t let that stop me from talking out my ass once again.

I wolf down the ice cream sandwich while my car warms up. As I pull away from Tom’s house I check the clock in my car. It is 1:04 am. I pull in my parking lot at 1:38 am - only one minute off from my prediction.

As I sit there staring at my dashboard, once again reveling in my uncanny ability to predict the future, I see an obnoxious yellow light come on. It says “low fuel”.

It’s going to be a long two weeks.