Debt nothing to be embarrassed about

I recently had one of those necessary college experiences – Giant Eagle declined my credit… I recently had one of those necessary college experiences – Giant Eagle declined my credit card because I had exceeded my limit. While I scrounged in my backpack to find change in order to pay for my frozen strawberries and limes, the checkout clerk looked at me with a mixture of pity and boredom. Eventually, I borrowed $10 from a friend, who told me that he knew how embarrassing the whole ordeal could be.

But I wasn’t embarrassed. I don’t associate not having money with shame. I associate shame and embarrassment with snarfing coffee up my nose, which I do, every single day, usually in public and in front of people cooler and more attractive than I am.

Instead, I associate having no money with ketchup and ramen spaghetti. Despite my views, there’s still a stigma attached to having no money, and a heavy one at that.

Being broke in college is something of a given. When students say that they’re broke, it elicits sympathy from all those who have been in the same situation, especially mid-life-crisis candidates who are sill paying off student loans.

Take being broke out of this context, and people, rather than offering pity, assign shame, which is one of the stupidest things they could do.

Why should people be ashamed of being poor, whether temporarily or permanently? Something’s clearly wrong with a society that punishes people for the simply having less money than they are apparently supposed to – and who designates what we’re supposed to have anyway?

Over winter break, I saw “Mona Lisa Smile” with my sister. The movie’s smug morality and “Isn’t she perfect?” treatment of Julia Roberts aside, there was one scene (and only one) that should not have found its way to the cutting-room floor. During a wedding scene, a character points out The Joneses of the phrase, “Keeping up with the Joneses.”

They were real people, trendsetters who set the standards of what people should wear, own and purchase. And they coincided with the burgeoning consumerism of the ’50s, after the meatless, wheat-less World War II era.

So my small event – which was really nothing more than a hassle and an impatient cashier – is indicative of a larger social more, one that has changed little in the past 50 years.

Now I could go the usual college-columnist route and rage against capitalism and why The Man is keeping me down by making me, uh, pay for stuff and bathe, but I won’t.

Instead I’ll relate something that happened to me while I was a wee-Syd, in junior high. I was shopping for shoes at Payless Shoe Source and, as I was leaving, some kid I knew in passing saw me.

I remember that he had had a voice like Nelson, the bully on “The Simpsons.” He said something to the effect of, “You shop at Payless? Ha-ha.” Ah, youth, that wellspring of intelligent insults. His shoes were large and expensive-looking, as I recall, and, to paraphrase Dave Barry, looked like toasters strapped to his feet.

Several years later, one of the pretty, popular girls at my high school – insofar as my hippie-ass school had pretty, popular girls – complimented my shoes and asked where I had gotten them. I blushingly responded “Payless.” Being female and on Earth, she was very enthused about shoes, so when she exclaimed that that’s where she bought most of her shoes, I felt genuine relief.

Changing views about money might not happen in one fell swoop, but as long as there’re people willing to say to hell with the Joneses, and scrounge with pride, things are certainly coming along one Payless shoe-step at a time.

Wish Sydney Bergman’s sister a 17th happy birthday at hannahbeedc@yahoo.com. E-mail Sydney at sbergman@pittnews.com.