Antique: (n) an object such as a piece of furniture or work of art which has a high value due to its considerable age.

For a brief season in my life I had more money than I needed and therefore convinced myself that I needed more money.

It’s amazing how greed does not go away when you find yourself in the black after bills are paid, but rather, settles as a black cloud over your soul, convincing you that if you don’t lay up more treasure, you will be swallowed by some catastrophe in the future, yet unseen.

So even though most of my journey has been spent clapping my hands in glee when the electric bill has been paid and cleared the bank, during this particular odyssey of finance, I became obsessed with a new word.

Investment.

Yes. Everything needed to be an investment.

So I was told my counselors (who were many since they discovered they could siphon off my wealth via giving advice) that houses were a good purchase.

I was told that if I bought a beautiful white grand piano, it would only appreciate over the years.

And of course, it was necessary, since I was now a person of worldly ilk, to go antiquing.

I was supposed to go to little storefronts which were jammed to the gills with fishy deals, and listen to someone explain how “this table was once in the den of Johnny Appleseed,” and had “already trebled in value and would certainly continue to do so.”

Having an untrained eye, to me it looked like a beat-up piece of wood which should have been broken up to fuel a fire years ago.

When I pointed this out to one of the enthusiastic “antiquers,” he stood back in horror and said, “It’s old. So it’s worth more money.”

I explained to him that I was getting older, and no one found me more valuable. He laughed a little (after all, I was still a potential sale).

Here was my discovery:

• I bought houses and barely broke even on the turnaround.
• That white grand piano had to be sold for less than half of its original value.
• And all the antiques I purchased were viewed by garage sale people as worthless clumps of nothing instead of the posterity of Mr. Appleseed.

There is a bliss to poverty.

You don’t have to wonder what you’re going to do with all your money.

Macaroni and cheese still tastes good on Day Three.

And most importantly… you don’t have to deal with antiques.

Thank you for enjoying Words from Dic(tionary) —  J.R. Practix