Monopoly

Dear You,

It's mid-April, so that means the IRS quietly removed from my savings account the money I owed in taxes for 2007. That same day, with just as little fuss, the bank took money I owed on the house "up North": principal, interest, and escrow on the mortgage. The process, called ACH I think, is used by a variety of creditors throughout the month to pay my bills. Even the church gets its share.

I think of "money" these days in the same way I think of the multi-colored scrip I use when playing Monopoly with grandchildren. Oh, it stings when I land on Brandon's or Joshua's property and have to shell out $1800 in rent . . . but only for a moment. I know that all I have to do is pass GO and I'll have more.

And at my age, it's just as easy to get the money replaced in my bank account. The trip around the board of Life involves waking up each morning until the day the calendar page flips to a new month. When I check my accounts on the computer, I've passed GO -- all that money the ACH process removed the previous month is back, and a little more. So it's not a "zero sum game" -- not quite, anyway!

The other day I stooped to retrieve someone's lost quarter. It felt good in my hand, and it was enough to insert into the nearby newspaper box to buy that day's copy of the St. Petersburg Times. Even as I heard the coin clunk in its little box I knew it had no intrinsic worth -- how many years has it been since a U. S. quarter-dollar held even a smidgen of silver?

Yes, it's all just a game.