Big Money, Big Business

Ian is very, very good at saving money. I attribute this entirely to the Scottish enclave of his ancestry.

And you usually know where his money is, either in the cup-holder next to his seat in the car, or in his room. The tooth fairy came a couple of weeks ago, and he left several dollar-bills visible in his room. But suddenly something changed...

As of this morning (I wasn't home last night), Ian was traipsing around the house with a wad of bills in his hand, including everything from the tooth fairy, but one of the bills was in the one-hundreds denomination. Yes - several one-dollar bills, and one $100 bill. Benjamin Franklin.

I didn't know what to make of this. I have never seen Ian with a $100 bill before, or even a $50 bill. He has many doting relatives, but none of them are a combination of wealthy and absurd. Nobody in our family would give an eight-year-old - even Ian Z. - a one-hundred dollar bill. I presumed that Amy Beth must know the back-story, but when she eventually got up this morning, and saw the new stash, she was even more surprised than I was. Suddenly we both became terrified.

Ian insisted it was real. I held it up to the light. $100. Ben Franklin. Federal Reserve Bank. Watermarks. Those awful new bands were even there - the ones they put in, embedded within the interior of the bill, identifying the dollar-value. The bewilderment grew.

Many questions followed. Ian was cagey, unsurprisingly, and this recalcitrance in sharing information, and the accompanying humor, was not appreciated by either parent.

- Who gave you the money?

- Someone.

- Who?

- A kid.

- When?

- Yesterday.

- Where?

- At school.

- Who was it?!?!?!

- Jacob.

- Why did he give you a hundred dollars?!?!!!?!

For a Pokemon. A very special one. Worth 130 "lives".

Amy lectured Ian on how he must never, ever accept this kind of money from anyone without talking to Mommy and Daddy first, and she told a story about another child in Ian's circle whose parents appropriately nixed a very lavish exchange rather recently.

Meanwhile, I was somewhat interested in ascertaining the "street value" of this retail gem. I wasn't interested in letting Ian keep the money, but I at least wanted to find out whether there was anything remotely "market-based" about Jacob's rather wacky "investment." E-Bay. Pokemon.com. Google...

Amy went online as well, and she quickly found the exact version of this creature - a Gayaron, or some similarly ridiculous, made-up, faux-exotic name for the fictitious creature in question. It's a pain sorting through it all, because there are so many cards, so many versions of a single card - both Japanese and Angloid - and no clear, unified tracking "handle" - no GUID, or UID, or serial number. Just "19 out of 100" - apparently dating back to the time when there were 100 Pokemon cards, rather than the several hundred which are now in circulation.

But Amy, with Ian's help, found the exact version of the Pokemon card in question, on E-Bay.

One dollar.

Ian presumably made a 9,900% profit on this exchange.

Amy got on the phone.

Thank God, Jacob's mother is very nice, and Amy and she are friendly anyway. It turned out that in the Jacob home, there is a practice - or, let's say, there was a practice - of cashing the paycheck and putting several hundred dollars in a communal jar for expenditures during the week. Apparently Jacob felt empowered as a member of the household, and made some of his own appropriations.

Perhaps quite suddenly - I'm not sure- Jacob's mom understood why, when they were at a friend's house the other day, children were walking around with hundred-dollar bills. What had been earmarked as grocery money, for all the frivolity of that designation, was suddenly being re-invested in the community, a kind of stimulus package for a few very fortunate, very young New Englanders. Sharing the wealth. Investing in our children. Passing it around, keeping things alive, stirring up the pot, fertilizing the garden, sowing new seeds, reaping one-hundred-fold. John Maynard Keynes for eight-year-olds.

Amy and Ian made a little visit to Jacob's house this afternoon. I suppose that Ian's loss is the local grocer's gain. Sometimes nourishment comes at the expense of stimulus.

But in all seriousness, I'm very proud of Ian for his straightforwardness, and complete lack of protest or resentment, in the "rollback" of this transaction. And it's pretty entertaining, to have such a colorful memory for Family Lore, about Ian's first $100 bill, which he playfully carried around the house along with tooth-fairy revenue, and Ian's first three-digit sale.

They say if you do what you love, the money will follow. Ian loves everything Pokemon, and when he pursued the industry of his heart's desire, that was exactly what happened.

Dare to dream!

(December 17, 2011)