Читать книгу The Meerkats’ Book on Money - Ilinda Markov - Страница 3

To prepare for our money foraging you have to BYO three, long discarded, memories.

The first goes back to the moment when you got your first pocket money. Remember the joy, the thrill of that special event when somebody put ceremonially a couple of coins in your little hand entrusting them to you, making a statement that you were big enough to have money, big enough to buy things, treasures like a soggy strawberry cream doughnut, Superman books with ripped pages and smudges of dirty fingers, or perhaps your dream was to stock up on chewing gum enough to master the art of blowing the best and biggest bubble gum balloons. Is important to bring that moment with you not because you have changed over the years and learnt to buy wiser but because I want you to relive the feeling that ripped through your juvenile heart and there are no emoticons for the thrill of the first bite into cold greasy chips bought by you alone lifting yourself on your toes in front of a market stall. The euphoria of receiving that first money and making use of it became a symbol of abundance that kept growing bigger than your best bubble gum balloon.

There’s a chance you have put that money into your first Piggy bank bought for you by the same old auntie who didn’t believe in giving money away but in passing on money attitude. So your second memory should be of the joy you felt when you rattle that Piggy bank and the music the coins produced: the music of money! Rattling that ceramic curly-tailed porker you feel important, you feel the bud of power and you wonder whether it’s always so easy to have a bank, your own bank full of money, the association between money and bacon in the back of your mind for life without knowing that pigg is the name of orange coloured clay used in the Middle Ages for pots to store money from where the name piggy bank originated. You don’t care! You love your little pig with a slit on its back or on one of its robust sides and you think that one of the purposes in your infant life is to feed it and make it happy gobbling coins in wait of the big moment when the piglet is so full that you have to break it. That’s how you start your career of a bank breaker.

Next, bring along another precious memory.

It’s about the first thing you bought for someone special with your own money earned by frothing cappuccinos in McDonald’s. It was for your always tired and moody mum. A shiny, long and purple scarf. She didn’t know what to do with until proudly tying it around a shade lamp in the lounge for everyone to see.

Bring that memory with you because it was the first sign and proof of your benevolent, romantic affair with money. You were young but cast money for an Oscar-winning support role in the movie of your life; you cast money for the back vocal to your own ode to joy. It was another triumphant moment of abundance and celebration of life.

These milestone moments of your money initiation charged with excitement and exuberant feelings will be a promising lay-out for your money digging.

First let’s complete the introduction. Only one of us comes with you to be your guide and that’s Liam, a young meerkat in his prime known to have a good nose for a free tucker. He is so clever, he can outsmart that cheating bird the drongo. For the record he chose to call you, Elizabeth and you come with so much luggage that you can’t fly commercial. Just kidding.

Or maybe not.