Just charge it !

charge account--"An existing line of credit at the business that issued it.

My best friend growing up was Billy Jones.  I met Billy the very first day of the first grade at the College Street Elementary School in Enterprise, Alabama.   To say that we “hit it off” would be a gross understatement.  We became friends before we knew just how easy our friendship would be.  Billy was seventeen days older than me.  I was born on the 19^th and he was born on the second.  His house was within walking distance of our school in one direction as my house was within walking distance from the other. This is to say that our houses were within walking distance of each other. And bicycles bisected  the distance at light speed.  From the first grade through the fourth grade when he had his accident, we were inseparable.  On Friday nights either I spent the night at his house or he spent the night at mine. And most afternoons we were playing at either house or in the ball field behind the school.

About halfway between our houses was a business known as “the dairy.”  It wasn’t an actual dairy because there were no cows.  No milk was produced at that location.  It could best be described as a milk distribution center.  For me it was a place to buy chocolate milk.  For a nickel I could buy one of those school lunchroom size cartons of chocolate milk.  Billy and I stopped there quite often on our coming and going to our houses.  One day though Billy said the magic words.  He had never used these words before and I had never heard them.  When she handed my carton to me, I gave her a nickel, but when she handed Billy his, he said, “Just charge it.”  And I was completely amazed by what happened next. Billy didn’t hand her any money.   I thought “charging it is the way to go.” A few days later we stopped at the dairy again and the same thing happened. When she handed the chocolate milk to Billy he said “Just charge it.”  So when she handed mine to  me, I said “Just charge mine too.”  She said, “Ok, David. Will do.”   This new system was working really well and we continued to charge our milk for several weeks.

One afternoon when I got home after school my mother asked me, “Are you charging milk at the dairy?” Now how in the world would she know that !?  I said, “Yes I am.”  She said, “David, we don’t even have a charge account at the dairy.  The milk man stopped by today to collect the money.”  Of course I had no idea what a charge account was or how the milk man found us, but I did know that my mother wasn’t happy with me.  My only punishment that I recall was having to listen to  a lengthy explanation of what a charge account entailed. And she made me promise not to ever charge anything without talking to her first. And I promised.  And I didn’t.

A few weeks before his accident, Billy and I built a fully functional space ship in the closet of his attic bedroom. We flew together to the outer edges of the Milky Way. And we always got home in time for supper. What happened just happened. It wasn’t anybody’s fault.  Billy’s brother thought it was his fault. I thought it was mine. But now I understand that we were both wrong. It was just a horrible accident. I visited Billy once in the hospital but because of my guilt I never went back to his house after he went home.  The next year because of all the school he had missed,  Billy was ‘put back” to repeat the fourth grade and I went on to the fifth.  And that was that.

A few weeks ago my wife and I bought a new car. The finance officer at the Nissan dealership asked what sort of financing we intended to do.  I looked at him, smiled and said, “Just charge it.”