Pride and Prejudice

Something happened this weekend that forced me to admit something to myself. I am a superficialist. You see this weekend, for the first time in my life someone sent me money via Western Union.

I'm not saying that there is anything inherently wrong with having money wired to you or that the people who received wired money are at all bad. Its just that... in my imagination people who have money wired to them are in some sort of desperate situation that was brought on by tragic circumstances or stupidity or a combination of both.

Again, its not that there is anything wrong with being desperate. Its just that, well. I don't want to be desprate. I don't even want to look. Desprate. And in some twisted way, having money wired to me makes me appear that I am, even though I'm not. Are you following this? I'm not sure I understand it either.

But it was this twisted complicated prejudice of mine and my weird since of pride that lead me to a grocery store, really out of my way and not in a nice neighborhood so I could avoid running into anyone I know while I picked up over $300 in cash from the customer service counter.

The truly odd thing is, I didn't need the money wired. Alex's father owed me for half of her ticket to Hawaii and for reasons that I still don't understand he couldn't send a check. I wasn't desperate for the payment. The money for the ticket had come from my savings.

So what is it about me that has me so obsessed with always being in control that I don't even want to appear to be out of control even when I'm not. WTF?

I have spent sometime pondering that question. I don't have an answer. In fact, the more I think about it the odder the whole thing seems. Still, when I look back with they way I handled the whole thing, I'm not sure I would ever change how I did it.