I like being right. Sometimes late at night, I lie on my bed staring up at imaginary stars and thinking about answers to everything. I am contented if sometimes not entirely happy with my conclusions.

There are several topics which invariably arise in discussions about life. Everyone I meet seems to be engrossed in the pursuit of these and will squawk to anyone willing to listen about the chase.

I am not much of a talker. People breathing in and exhaling air as words bore me. But I have been harnessed by society. I have learnt to say okay when it’s not; great when it’s mediocre and laugh at pitiful jokes. When I sometimes do otherwise, the strings of society tighten around me and I’m told to bear up, be polite or why am I so damn rude. I have basically been tamed. The Rules have been drummed into me; in short, I’m a defanged viper. But I digress.

One of the pillars on which everyone seems to want to build his/her life is money.  I happen to think this is a good foundation. I know some who say that money isn’t everything. But they have money so they can afford anything. This is not to say that money is everything because if I had to choose between the people I hold dear and money, the choice is of course, family.

Anyway, lately everyone I know seems to have been bitten by a little bug which apparently compels them to ask the brilliant question: “Why are you not married yet?” With the stifling strings of society in mind, I answer mostly politely. But me being me, I need something more, so I say I can’t afford a wife, which is true. Magically everyone can see my point and compliment me on speaking it plainly. Whatever.

For if I were to take a wife now, I would have to promise her, the church, my mother, her mother, not forgetting the law, that I would care for her in sickness and in health, in good times and bad, and everything else, doing all this penniless or not. Not that I have a problem with it but the woman who doesn’t care about money is a myth.

From experience, having money makes everybody, including me, happy. Plus, I’ve sat awake nights trying to drown out the sound of neighbourhood women cursing their husbands about money. Funny, they seem so friendly in the day. I pass by awkwardly and admire the Jews for their Shtar Tena’im, the “Document of Conditions” which is given upon engagement, while the women cheerily call out good morning. I wonder if they knew I heard the filthy words they said last night. In my ‘Document of Conditions’, there is a line at the top that says “thou shall not be a shrew”.

Money is important. Maybe it can’t buy happiness but it sure come close and it can buy everything else. The ingredients, if you will. Money + ingredients =happiness (how good the product is depends on how you go about making it and if processes are followed).

I am rarely wrong. But views can change. I have tremendous respect for Winston Bailey known to the rest of you as ‘Shadow’. He puts it this way:
“Without money to buy honey

You’re headin’ for misery

She want hairdo and callaloo

And you ent have nothing”

And later:

“You must assume she want perfume

And good things to consume

You say she nice But take advice:

She must want some hot rice”
“Yuh looking fuh horn,” that wise man Shadow sings. He is right. And so I conspire in the windless night to be a millionaire before 26.    (thescene@stabroeknews.com)