Used to be it would come in a small orange envelope – on a Thursday. I’d flip that flap on the way home on the tram as it ground it’s way through the streets on square wheels – The Number five to Wattletree Road In W class splendour its sides painted green, the pantilever reaching up to the sky like a drawbridge, arcing across the over head wires. I’d lift that flap just out of Chapel Street and pull out the three red twenties, real paper money- real money that I was really earning- my Forty hours exchanged for 60 real dollars- lets see – that’s One Dollar Fifty per hour then – after tax of course!

Now all I get is an email with a PDF attachment- your pay I has been disbursed to the following institutions X Y Z- it’s a pity the superannuation isn’t available until 60 + but that’s probably a good thing. Pretty much every payday since I started working has been a waste- alcohol fueled nights of youth spent in swirling disco bars, cars that I should never have bought , the Ford Capri in its deep ruby lip gloss red, that golden sports stripe along the side like a swishing tigers tail. The money pit it became- everything seemed to be sucking at my meager pay , the money was a magnet attracted to the centre of the earth.

Even now before I know it, syphons and probisci have entered my bank accounts and swept off portions of my income before I even realize it’s there. It’s just all so distant and separate- at least in my youthful days I physically felt the roughness of the paper- the thousands of hours of humanity welded into the paper. These day with plastic notes it doesn’t even have a smell- Paper money – now that had a crispness when it was knew- those green two buck notes with the jumping jumbucks. Charles Kingsford Smith flying across the old Twenty- yes those were the days, when I could see it and store and had to go to the bank to deposit it –All physical- all time consuming- all so bloody inconvenient-Now it’s only inconvenient while we wait for an ATM to dispense the folding stuff through that slot. With it hot in hand a small demon appears at the right shoulder humming the mantra to ‘spend’ ‘spend’ ‘spend’. Nasty critter- sort of green he is and scrawny and hunched like an old oak tree. ‘Spend’ a quiet but pushy voice…..