I Checked My Bank Account Today...

As if Mondays didn't suck enough.

Despite how much fun I may have on a long weekend or on a getaway trip with friends, this exhilarating rush takes nothing away from the extremely horrific feeling that overwhelms me whenever I check my bank account the following Monday morning. The baroque slapstick of the particulars aside, it mostly feels familiar. I tap my banking app and it propels me into this high-leverage game called “Should I be financially responsible or be happy?” There is no real winner here and the results are self-spiting.

The vibes are appalling, and my anxiety is atomized and entropic. Ari Aster couldn’t conjure a suspense scene that captures the dread of logging in and waiting to see that credit card number, which is always a little too high. I begin to compose a strongly worded email to my bank that fraud has been committed on my account, and this is aimed at projecting steadiness and the absence of panic before the tone of my internal voice starts tipping into coded messages of despair.

For people with many zeros in their bank accounts, the difference-making breakthrough of money management is not some abstruse proprietary technology or algorithm-aided methodology brought to bear by financial savants who can deny themselves any conceivable pleasure in life. That disciplinary stuff runs through it all, but the most reasonable disciples integrate this knowledge through realistic, adaptable, detailed budgeting that works for idiots like me to make it all comprehensible, then practicable, and finally just habit. But these techniques also become very vulnerable when it encounters even the level of turbulence that could be described as “normal impulse control.” Picture a garage full of state-of-the-art and precise power tools, owned by a man who haymakers led pipes.

The draft of the email is written and waiting for me to promptly click “Send,” but before my baseline apathy-unto-antipathy demeanor settles in, I click to see what’s pending and try to grasp all my financial information in a coherent and integrated way.

“Well, I did get dinner there.”

“I did get drinks with everyone at that bar”

“We did take that Uber across town.”

“Kevin did Venmo me $10 for the $70 Uber, so that’s pretty much fine.”

“We did go to that bar. We did go to THAT bar.”

“What is this charge from Intimate Cuddles? Oh, wait, yeah… I did pay for a ticket to hold a baby goat.”

“Wait—what is this? A $50 charge to Goodie Company? I found the fraud!”

Then my blurry managerial whims become luridly real, and specific details of my iPhone activity during that Uber ride begin to fill the gaps of my spotty booze-soaked memory. I bought a weird graphic tee shirt from a brand I’ve never heard of. The Instagram ads finally got me.

Stomaching this process hinges on the comparatively unsexy realm of taking ownership of my questionable decisions, but the last and seemingly most important part is to confirm whether these purchases actually add up to the stated amount. I proceed to tally them on my nifty calculator app and I can confirm that my unnecessary transactions add up to that exact amount. Now the fraud detection pivots to figuring out how $400 at Whole Foods and a trip to Target tapped into my life savings.

I have read my fair share of Marxist theory, and out of all my macroeconomic gripes about the housing crisis and corporate-driven inflation, the singular biggest issue with capitalism is that it is somehow “fiscally irresponsible” to constantly buy myself little treats. Made-up system.

Once I admit defeat and resign myself to accepting that this cycle resembles a perpetual motion device, I close the bank app and then go onto Google and type in “How to actually cook dinner.” Guess I’ll be making tortellini for this entire pay cycle.

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