The most beautiful and essential item a man can carry abroad is a piece of magnetised plastic called the Credit Card. Invented in 1950, perfected soon after, it’s the ultimate minimalist wallet. What else could you need? Small change? Dog-eared photos of lost loves?
Once that gummed piece of paper that turns into an envelope is signed and delivered to the bank, freedom is on its way. While the hamsters and drones work and save for months for a small slice of freedom, the credit savvy simply throw down their plastic to satisfy whatever whim has taken hold.
A carnival adventure in Brazil calls? Swipe. A
honied Cali girl is filling your inbox with dirty talk and wants you to
salt her in the OC? Swipe. Overnighting in Jakarta en route to the
Mentawais and it’s either the airport departure lounge or the Sheraton?
Swipe.
Where the caveman used spears to fend off predators, the modern man uses his plastic. Where the sensible and cautious traveller uses crude language skills and persuasion, the modern man reaches into his billfold and flips out his Mastercard, Visa or Amex (and God wiling, you’ll have all three).
It’s the language the world understands. When fierce brown hands are tugging at you as you make your way from your Seminyak villa to your Grajgan-bound bus, simply retrive your card and wave it at the understanding faces. No cash. Fuck off. When the stiff at concierge is threatening a call to the local constabulory unless you cough up the green to replace the tv and window, you fan your cards on the table. Watch his eyes light up and the telephone receiver remain in its cradle.
Forget about newspaper headlines that suggest we’re “drowning in debt” or girlfriends, parents or economists suggesting that you’re living beyond your means?
Beyond your means? What kind of defeatist talk is that? Is not the sole objective of our existence to wring every drop of fun out of our meaningless lives?
Ask the anti-credit mobs: Does it hurt you if I want to live?
If I want to taste the essence of life?
If I want to fly?
If I want to dance in Rio, ride powder in Tahoe, slaughter waves in
Fiji and commission Simon Anderson to build me a 12-board quiver? And
die enveloped in unpaid debt?
A life of luxury awaits us all. Tune in. Turn on. – Derek Rielly.
