Money’s My Best Friend

I said “no” to a payday loan

I just got back from the Sunbanks Rhythm and Blues festival, a four-day music and camping event at beautiful Banks Lake near Electric City, Washington. I had to take time off from work without pay in order to go, and financially I was cutting it uncomfortably close to the wire.

It wasn’t pride so much as syntax

I’d been getting a lot of illiterate-sounding emails with names like “no faxing payday loans,” “easy loan,” “instant cash loans,” “money now,” and “payday loan yes.” I really could have used the extra cash all these payday lenders were offering. It wasn’t that I was not desperate; it was more that even though I didn’t know how I was going to pay my car insurance when I got home, I could not stoop to the orthographical level of a “cash til payday loan.”

I forgot my worries with Two Scoops Moore

So I packed up my tent and sleeping bag, put the few groceries I had in a cooler, and set off for Sunbanks with a blues-fan friend whose car had a full tank of gas. I was still thinking about emergency loans and instant money when Eric “Two Scoops” Moore took the stage. Moore is a pianist, singer, and songwriter from Seattle who spent several years on the road with Luther “Guitar Jr.” Johnson. He has a strong, soulful voice and a rollicking, honky-tonk keyboard style. His performance included hilariously crafted, cartoonish songs like “Big Ugly Fella,” “Big Fat Mama,” “Hamburger Time,” “Let’s Eat!” and “Big Buffet,” (“They got meat and potatoes, they got beans and rice, they got good country gravy make you go back twice . . . “).

I said “yes” to money

Two Scoops did the trick!

Listening to Two Scoops on a warm, sunny morning by the side of a sparkling, blue lake — far from “payday loans uk” and all the other ragged claws of internet babble — my money worries began to fade. Then Two Scoops sang a song with a title I didn’t catch and lyrics I couldn’t miss: “Keep a dollar in your pocket ‘cause money’s your best friend.” Right on cue, my companion with the car and once-full tank of gas handed me a one-dollar bill. I gave him back a smile and stuck the bill in my pocket. I had resisted all manner of “paycheck loans,” “same day cash,” and “quick payday loans,” but I wasn’t saying “no” to my new best friend.

Then I found a great big friend

When I got home, my friend George was still in my pocket. I was going to move him in with the ten or so other one-dollar bills I still had in my wallet and eat for a few days. Then I remembered the bag of food I’d rescued from the cooler. I unpacked it and there in the bottom of the plastic grocery bag I found a friend I hadn’t seen in a long, long time: Ben Franklin. He was dripping wet from the melted ice, but still worth a hundred Georges.

And we’ll get by till payday

I laid Ben out on the table to dry and called my blues companion to tell him that Ben would be staying with me for three weeks and then going back home to him. I have great memories from Sunbanks. I have a good friend who still has a car with half a tank of gas. I have a few festival leftovers in the refrigerator. I have George. I have George’s ten comrades. And most of all, I have Ben. Money’s my best friend, and I’ll get by without a loan till payday.