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Before I came to America, for several years I had to put up with the compulsory diet. I didn't want to get rid of the fat that was attached to my bones but it appeared that somebody didn't want me to gain weight instead.
Every month I was given a small rectangular carton card filled up with small letters and numbers. Under the small letters there were hidden the names of goods that were allotted to me: meat, sugar, flour, shoes, cigarettes and even matches. Small numbers stated the quantity of those goods: two pounds of meat, two pounds of sugar, two pounds of flour, five packs of cigarettes, ten boxes of matches... Everybody had been receiving those cards because according to those who had issued those cards everybody had the same needs. It didn't matter that I wasn't a smoker at that time - I had to have my ration.
Everything would have been all right because I understood a difficult situation of my country but when I entered the store requesting my allowance, the shop assistant was spreading his arms with an excuse - I am sorry there is nothing on the store's shelves. It looked to me like a paradox. I had a card, I had money but I wasn't able to get what I needed, what I wanted and how awful... anything that was due to me!
Enough was enough and one day I decided to end that misery. The only way to do that was to pull my bones together (it was easy because there was no fat on them now) and go to... just anywhere. Without thinking too long I made up my mind. Although I could go to Italy, Germany or France I chose America as my destination. But what I didn't realize was that from one misery I would step into another one.
America was full of goods that I wanted to have, that I needed, but as opposed to my country there was nothing there due to me. I had to work hard to get what I wanted. What was hard for me to understand however, was the fact that in that paradise I had to have a card. I was already sick of using something like that. Money is money. If I have it - I buy things. If I don't have it - I don't even try to think of buying anything. But somebody instructed me that if I wanted to live in America I had to have at least one card. So one day I applied for it and I got it.
The card is different from the one I used to have. It is made from plastic. I keep it in one of pigeon-holes in my wallet and I don't use it. I don't use it because I am afraid of it. What's more, why should I use it if everything that makes me happy is on the shelves of every store? It is enough to enter the store, grab this everything and hand some money to the cashier. It is easy like two plus two.
Watching people who play their cards, I am sorry for them because I know from my previous experience that this kind of game is treacherous.
When I was lucky to find something on the store's shelf in my country that matched the small letters and numbers on the card, a small square was cut out from it and I had to wait the whole month to get the same thing again, whether it was a piece of meat or a few boxes of matches. Here, in America, nobody uses a pair of scissors to trim the card but asks - "Cash or charge?" And people are trapped. They don't reach for money, they don't pay in hard currency. They open their wallets and play cards.
The card that I used in my country was like a chameleon. Every month there was a new color and a new shape. It was hard to exist without it and the fact of possessing it made the existence even harder. Having money didn't mean anything - I wasn't able to spend it the way I wanted. THE CARD defined nonentity.
The new card that I have in my wallet now doesn't change its color and its shape and it is valid for a few years, but it defines life on credit. I don't need to pay for dinner that I had in a fancy restaurant. But I have a strange feeling about that. Although everything that I had eaten was already in my stomach - it wasn't mine. It belongs to the credit-giver.
And although I am not a gambler I know that holding cards doesn't mean to win the game.
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