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Confessions of the Middle-Class Child Illustration by Hanne de Brabander.

Confessions of the Middle-Class Child

From Le sel de la terre: Confessions d’un enfant de la classe moyenne, translated by Melissa Bull (Nouveau Projet’s Documents series, Volume: 3).

CONFESSION III

“He’s talentless.”

It’s an expression the old guys in Lac- Saint-Jean use to talk about those who are bad with money. The chronically-on-welfare, the spendthrifts, the eternally broke, the money-eaters, the money executioners. I spent my twenties figuring I was just like them because I didn’t, in fact, have a goddamned cent, and then the thirties came and the job along with it and I kept having a bloody miserable time paying the bills on time, or not forgetting bills at the bottom of my filing cabinet. I lose money in one-hundred-dollar hits because I forget to fill out my requests for reimbursements. I’ll discover, all of a sudden, that I have some extra cash and I spend it on books or Scotch, then I remember two hours later why I’d put it aside in the first place. Come tax time, I ...

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