Money for nothing? When it came to cash, I used to be an idealist. Then that student-loan check arrived. BY REBECCA WIEDER

I’ve always known that I wouldn’t make a lot of money in my life. In fact, during my adolescence, "Money means nothing to me" was one of the many statements — "I don’t care what people think about me" and "Beadwork is the coolest" being two of the others — that propped up my precarious sense of self. But it takes only a couple of post-college years without such frills as condiments and junkie-free housing to scratch up shiny idealism, and so by the time I reached the quarter-century mark, I’d accepted my financial outlook with resignation rather than holier-than-thou glow. I’ll never be rich. And I’m okay with that, really. Mostly really.

Still, now that I’ve discarded my ascetic leanings, I sometimes get a funny, warm feeling in my belly when handling a large sum of money. I have been in contact with a large sum of money exactly once in my life — upon receiving my student-loan check — but the sensation was so palpable that I’m convinced it could be repeated, should anyone care to send another big sum my way. I should have felt sad that the largest check I’ll ever receive is one that I’ll have to pay back twofold, but instead I was excited by the prospect of spending money that didn’t belong to me. It’s been suggested that it was the lump-sum aspect of the check that got me hot and bothered, and the length and girth of the figure certainly didn’t hurt. But I think there was something else going on.

Ever since I got my first job — as a country-club busgirl — I saw my earnings as increments of misery. A $30 pair of jeans was equal to six bow-tied hours listening to people tell me they were allowing themselves to eat only the very smallest pig-in-a-blanket on my tray. So you can imagine: I wore the same jeans for eight years. Even in more enjoyable jobs, I endowed my direct deposits with the weightiness of a nest egg, the possibility of someday buying a house, or, much later, retiring: I spent money guiltily, furtively, like a dieter scarfing food in the night.

Then the loan check — its arrival heralded by angels — changed everything. This blessed piece of paper represented money I had neither suffered to earn nor earmarked to help me live out my last days. I had never before believed in "free money," but now its existence was undeniable. A large check had arrived in the mail, made out to me, without (at least for the time being) menacing threats of LATE FEES or INTEREST. Hallelujah.

Mom, Dad, and my Depression-era ancestors: don’t be alarmed. I’m not out there sucking down sirloin steak or buying $150 jeans. I’m a vegetarian — and one who, perhaps fortunately, doesn’t have a taste for the finer things. But I have discovered the delicious irreverence of eating sushi when I should be eating lentil soup, having beers out when I should be having them in. Of flying to Hawaii for the weekend — or at least imagining what flying to Hawaii for the weekend might be like if I had the balls or the stupidity (balls = stupidity?) to blow off February rent.

As every gambler will tell you, there’s something sexy about money that you have not earned, that has seemingly been sent from above to make your life better. As every thief will tell you, there is something hot about spending money that is not yours. Like you’re getting away with something. But in the case of spending the loan check, you’re getting away with something without blowing your life's savings or risking imprisonment. Which is a much sexier way of taking a risk.

I know, I know, it’s this attitude that’s driving our plastic-dependent society into the ground, wrecking homes, and ravaging the national treasury. There’s probably some pop-psych explanation for our desire to spend money we don’t have, or at least a couple of decent clichés that could sum it up. In my ascetic adolescence I would have written Michael Moore and suggested he make a movie about it. But for now let’s stick with the sexiness. Loan check = sexy. You buying it?

Maybe you aren’t. In two years, when I start having to pay it all back, I won’t be buying it, either. I won’t be buying anything. I will be living without condiments in a black-and-white world. It might be enough to push me over the edge ... or perhaps into a PhD program.

Rebecca Wieder can be reached, for large contributions only, at rebezca@juno.com