Poetz celebrates BUY NOTHING DAY

photo: Rochelle Ratner
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HOW I SAVED SIXTY DOLLARS FOR
THIRTY-SIX YEARS & NEVER
BOUGHT A THING

by Allen Brafman

This is a long walk I have been walking. I have been keeping my eye on this walk since 1967. How many pairs of shoes have I walked off since 1967? How many pairs of eyeglasses and contacts have I seen through since 1967? In a thrift shop near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, I bought seven torn and dirty ten-dollar bills for three dollars ninety-seven cents. I smiled politely as I took two cents from the put-a-penny take-a-penny beside the cash register. The clerk, a fat woman in a cotton dress with faded pretty flowers, the dress a couple of sizes too small, tried to smile back. But she had so few teeth left growing in her gums, her smile looked more like a costume of a fat lady smiling than a real smile. I gave her one of the torn and dirty ten-dollar bills I had just bought and told her it was a birthday present. It's not my birthday, she objected through her few remaining crooked teeth. Don't make a fuss about whose birthday, I thought, smiling with every tooth I had. Just celebrate. I think she got the idea. As I was leaving, she tore the ten in half and gave a half to each of two girls looking at dresses. One of the girls tore her half into I don't know how many tiny pieces and gave one or two to each of the boys looking at the comics and National Geographics. I still have the other six ten-dollar bills. I've never needed to buy anything much. But I like having the tens around for a rainy day. Folded together, they make for a dandy umbrella. If I had put the money in the market back then, them old tens would have grown new so many times over, I'd need to buy a shredder to cut them up into enough pieces to go around. I don't want to need to buy a shredder. That was thirty-six years back this walk began. I'm still walking. Still not buying much with money. I may be lying. But every word is true. And that's not just today. It's every day. As my friend Ken is fond of saying, we run things. Things no run we.