With the economy being what it is and knowing that I'm feeling a sense of food insecurity because of it, I figured it was time for me to buckle down and get smart about my finances. I started reading "The 9 Steps to Financial Freedom," as I recalled hearing good things about the book, and I just got to the part about remembering a childhood experience associated with money. I'm now so upset that I'm sick to my stomach, and I'm developing a headache.
When I was in the second grade, we had a school assembly with a magician. Every child was supposed to bring a quarter to cover the cost. My mom wouldn't give me a quarter but said I would have to earn it by doing something I really hated doing. I don't remember what it was, just that I really didn't like doing it. I think it might have been extra dish washing, as I had trouble getting things clean and she would always check them and make me rewash the ones that weren't completely clean. I'd never seen a magician and wasn't really sure what one was, so I decided to not do the whatever and just not go. Anyway, when the day of the assembly came, all of the students filed out of class, and I told the teacher that I didn't have a quarter and wasn't going. The teacher said I couldn't sit in the classroom by myself and that it would be OK if I went and stood by her. It was, of course, a magical event. I even gathered up some of the "magic sand" left on the stage afterward and took it home, where my mom asked me about it and I told her I'd been allowed to go to the assembly. She made me do the whatever and then take a quarter to the teacher in front of the class and tell her it was wrong of me to go to the assembly without paying and that I was now paying. I was so humiliated.
I'd forgotten all about this. I have carted the little bottle of "magic sand" around with me 30 years, remembering it was from a magician show in school I enjoyed, but I forgot the circumstances around it.
