Ask Fred: Money
Whatever your financial status, Fred Fletch is here to help – unless you haven't seen Roadhouse, in which case, you're officially screwed
The Conservatives have unveiled their latest budget and brought with it fewer surprises than a remake of The Crying Game called 'SHE’S GOT DICK.' The rich get richer, the poor get poorer. The gap between the haves and the have-nots has widened to the point where Elysium is found in video shops under 'Things to do next week,' meaning your average banker will replace his insoles with bald eagle pelt, and the man on the street can enjoy an asshole that smells of exotic birds.
To their credit, they did promise to give “the hardworking people more of what they enjoy,” and promptly took one pence off bingo and beer – one patronising discount short of cutting tax on cannibalism and rolling in your own cave filth.
This month I answer questions on money.
Dear Fred,
I work on the tills of a popular high street store. Every week a woman comes in to buy stamps. She’s always loaded with designer store shopping bags and pays for her stamps with a £50 note. She makes snooty small talk and waves her fancy shopping around while I slave away, ten hour shifts, dealing with idiots. She says thank you like her tongue is sore from licking gold, and is oblivious to rubbing how rich she is in everyone’s faces. How can I let her know she’s a spoilt twat without losing my job? I’d like to let her know where she can stick her stamps.
Mandy
Having spent almost six years of my life as a till-monkey, I feel your pain; but since this isn’t 1992, and I’m not Kevin Smith, it’s hard to give a fuck about your selfless battle against people who aren’t you.
I’ve seen enough episodes of DuckTales to know that wealth does not define the man and/or duck’s worth, and that with fiscal exuberance there's usually a unique set of problems, mostly involving time-travel or ghosts. Don’t make others feel bad about their own finances. Yes, a certain degree of tact should be shown around people who can’t buy exorbitantly expensive things, but it’s not up to every millionaire buying stamps to check that your urologist has cleared you to work with the public. Most of the time, the world has some self-awareness and logical class. Harrods don’t have a store in Ethiopia, and no one in Rwanda returns my Xbox One friend requests.
Despite not being ‘rich,’ I have accumulated three DVD copies of Roadhouse (for Roadhouse related reasons). Sure, a child in North Korea might view my display of consumerism to be crass, but dysentery makes everyone a critic and ’ll be damned if some orphan’s going to make me feel guilty about my movie collection.
The rich generally aren’t an evil race of higher beings whose hobbies include inbreeding, yacht purchases or homeless hunting. People are generally good and are defined by their actions, not by how much of a mystery the inside of a Poundstretchers is. The woman carrying 34 Harvey Nichols bags isn’t rubbing it in your face; you can have a problem with her when she feeds you one of her handbags while beating her driver with a jar of pickled panda hearts. Until then, she’s just a lady you don’t know. Give her a fucking break. Finish your shift, head home, and thank your lucky stars your parents gave birth to something that can live on both land and sea.
You know nothing about her other than an inspection of her shopping trip. As far as you know, her money came from kitten resuscitation and research into removing the stick from your angry, unforgiving anus.
Dear Fred,
Will money bring me happiness?
Scrooge McDuck
Most of what I know about money is from the 124 minutes of Trading Places that aren’t nude Jamie Lee Curtis. Since happiness is subjective and based on the outlook of the individual, logic suggests I can’t answer this. But this text-me-a-joke service I just signed up for says otherwise.
I punched in the word ‘money’ and told my happiness to brace its everythings… This is what I learned:
Q: What’s six inches long, two inches wide and drives women wild?
A: A $100 bill!
I was going to suggest rabies, but I’ve never actually measured a vole.
Q: What did the cat say when he lost all his money?
A: I’m paw!
Jesus fuck, this is exactly what you get when a joke’s mother drinks during pregnancy.
Q: What do stockbrokers say to each other when they want the other person to shut up?
A: Put a stock in it!
HA HA, what a delightful pun. I bet this is actually used by real stockbrokers every day.
STOCKBROKER 1: “HEY MARK, I JUST SHIT AWAY MILLIONS OF DOLLARS OF OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY, PLUNGING THE WORLD INTO ENDLESS DESPAIR-FLAVOURED RECESSION.”
STOCKBROKER 2: “PUT A STOCK IN IT AND SHRED ALL THE FUCKING EVIDENCE.”
STOCKBROKER 1: “HA HA. COCAINE RULES.”
Q: How do you hide money from a hippie?
A: Put it under the soap.
Yeeeeeah. Take that, hippies.
Q: What is the only way to keep your money from the casinos in Vegas?
A: When you get off the plane, walk into the propellers!
This isn’t so much a joke, as something ‘Mandy’ writes on a stamp-filled corpse.
Q: Where did the fish put his money?
A: In the river bank.
This joke bases its success on the fact that ‘bank’ can be several different nouns, and that the audience is both six, and unfussy.
Q: Where did the Snowman keep his money?
A: In the snow bank.
FUCK YOU.
Since this service cost me £2 per ‘joke’ delivered, I can confirm that the only person laughing is the asshole who made this God-awful bullshit.
In answer to your question Scrooge: NO. Money just brought me the comedy equivalent of an Eddie Adams portfolio.
Dear Fred,
I’m one of those infamous ‘bankers’ you hear about, and I’ve just been awarded my hard-earned bonus. I worked to get where I am and my only crime was being smart enough to land a well-paid job. I’m viewed as the devil incarnate by the public, but it’s just jealousy. Why should I turn down the money I’m due, just because others didn’t make good choices and succeed? I’m rich, so deal with it. I’m not going to apologise for it, or for not having a minimum wage job, and I refuse to ‘come down to their level’ to be liked.
As I’ve said, there’s nothing wrong with being rich. Sure bankers are demonised. Mathematically, it’s like the public consciousness took ‘money inverstor’ and multipled by ‘HITLER SQUARED.’
You’re part of something perceived as bad, so it’s up to you to deal with that as you see fit. No one needs to come down to anyone’s level. That would be patronising.
That being said, please enjoy the following joke:
Q: Where did the cactus keep his money?
A: Eat a dick you arrogant fucknut.