RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31785, 16 September 1968, Page 21

RANDOM REMINDER

BREACH OF PROMISE

Money is not only a medium of exchange; when taken in large doses it is also a medium of change. There are folk who say that the winning of some big lottery would not alter their way of living. The odds of their being disproved are extremely remote; Which is as well for their pride but not so good for their pleasure. Most of us have had the occasional dream of being plucked from our strata of servility and flung joyously, if not to the realms of royalty, at least to a much higher tax bracket, only to be rudely awoken by a cheap alarm clock and the realisation that yesterday was the last day for net payment of the „ electricity account. If we all waited until we were wealthy before wa married, many prob-

lems would be solved, including the population explosion; but this is not the general practice; love being more potent than reason, most of us settle for the marry-now, paylater scheme. Much more typical of the average man’s fortune is the story of a newly-mar-ried man who had a disappointing affair with Lady Luck. If you have tears to shed, prepare to shed them now. He was employed in a Christchurch office. One morning, at the next desk, a fellow clerk sat down, opened an envelope, shouted out half a dozen times that they had won Tatts; then turned pale. Taking the change of complexion as proof that this was no idle joke, our friend staidly totted up his share of the windfall-one sixth of £lO,OOO and calmly realised that he was

entirely free of debt. If they had been able to afford a ’phone he would have hurriedly called his wife.

The dismal office took on a pinkish hue with gay, giggling typistes; flabbergasted, guffawing, backslapping, hand-shaking fellow clerks moving about like figures on a film. He felt like a hovercraft as he wandered among them. Heaven, he thought, must be something like this.

Then someone remarked on it being the first ticket of a new syndicate, one our friend had been asked to join but had refused for financial reasons. The office took on a greenish hue; the screaming, screeching typistes and the crude bellowings of those in the successful syndicate became nauseating. Hell, he thought, must be something like this.