In A Yellow Wood

[Olga, my 18 year old coworker here at the Cute Victorian Hotel Around The Corner, and I were surfing the web on our front desk terminals this morning (slow day) and she asked me what vuh-nill was. I tore my eyes away from Popbitch and looked where she was pointing.]

["It's vinyl, Olga. It's records, as opposed to CDs or tapes."
"Ohhhhhh," she ohhhhhhed. "So Tupac's new one is out on a record?"]

[To be fair, English is her second language, but aren't all these younguns into slavishly watching DJs spin at parties, jaws slack and heads bobbing?]

[She and I got into a discussion a bit later about her first credit card, apparently on its way. I told her if there was one thing I would do over, it would be to get one, and only one, of those plastic Satan tiles, and pay it off every month. She replied that a lot of people had told her the same thing and she was determined not to blow it.]

[We'll see. There are a lot of things I'd do over, and with every one of them, if you'd asked me at the cusp of decision, I think I'd've given the responsible answer. But I went the other way anyway, and while "that has made all the difference," the real lesson to be drawn is: how do I actually do what I know to be the right thing?]

[Happily, my 20s debt is paid down to the point that I'm receiving offers for new cards in the mail again, and I'm not even slightly tempted.]

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