There was the money that my first serious boyfriend and I earned doing "rough cleaning" (scrubbing floors with a bundle of iron shavings, then waxing and polishing. Also washing windows). I was 16 (*just* old enough to work legally) and he was 17.5 and we pooled the money in a savings account which I managed (he had more interest in philosophy than in everyday living. To this day his wife takes care of "details" <g>). Eventually, when we split (2 yrs later), each of us got a sizeable (for our age) "nest egg" but, once we were certain that we could have as many "further engagements" as we could manage (school was 6 days a week, so it was only afternoons and Sundays we had free to work), we decided to "blow" that first "honest money". That's where my first red shoes came from -- he gave me his share, and I bought them in a private store (as opposed to a govt one, where everything was 4 times cheaper, and about 50 yrs behind the fashion). There was enough money left for (student-priced) tickets to the theatre (Midsummer Night's Dream), and I wore the shoes with the brand-new dress I designed and my Mother made for me: black and white 4mm checks, white Peter Pan collar, and a red "tie" -- a bit like a man's, but twice as wide and permanently tied and fixed at the neckline and as long as the dress itself. I felt very stylish (though cold, as the dress was sleeveless)
My second "first paycheck" was money I earnt illegally, working without a permit in Cambridge, UK at 18 (almost 19). That one got me a pair of "real" (Levi's) blue jeans and Daniel Jones' "English Pronouncing Dictionary". The second paycheck was spent on a denim jacket to match the jeans. I had to take a co-worker (a 15yr old named Sam, who came most afternoons, after school; I worked full time -- 15/7 ) with me to show me where the denim treasures could be found. He was disgusted with my wasting the money on the book but it turned out he had an ulteriour motive: he borrowed the jeans and the jacket for his first out-of-school job interview, but had no use for the dictionary... <g> To this day I remember the two buying trips the two of us made, the superiour hush of the Levi's "establishment", and how much Sam enjoyed ordering the sales clerks around, while I was in and out of the fitting booth (fitting booth??? I'd never seen one before; in Poland, you were lucky if there was a mirror per floor)
My third "first"... The "damned intellectuals" (like University students) needed a lesson in reality, so they had to spend a summer month working either in a factory or at a collective farm... I was sent to a factory (fruit and veg processing), near the German border (praise be; at least there was running hot and cold water there) the summer after the Brit one. By then, I had already been (privately) tutoring English for a year -- a very lucrative job -- so I was used not only to having money, but to earning it without too much effort. It turned out I *did* need a lesson in "reality", though; an hour of tutoring got me as much as 8 hrs in the factory, and there was no tax on tutoring, since that was done "sub rosa" and never reported... :)
So, when I collected my *month's* worth of wages, and it wasn't quite enough to replace the nice watch and ring which had been stolen while I was there (we got paid the same as the "locals". But *our* food and lodging was subsidised, in toto, by the govt, in the name of "education"... The mind boggles <g>. OTOH, apparently, US is paying for the Polish troops trip to Iraq...), I blew it all on a one-piece, stretchy, swimsuit. An Italian import in weird colours and a splotchy "pattern". Since Western imports were "the thing" (prestige-wise; price-wise, even imports were subsidised by the govt <g>), and since the suits were sold in only one store in Warsaw, it was quite a triumph to have secured one. The store was fancy enough to have fitting booths -- 3 for the swim-suit dept. Each consisted of 4 pieces of fabric attached to aluminium tubes, and there was a mirror outside; one (and everybody else <g>) could see how well/ill the garment fit. There was a long queue for each of the booths, and there was a 4-deep ring of men around the mirror (we didn't have "Sports Illustrated", summer issue in Poland <g>), waiting for the "contestants" to emerge from behind the curtains... Mostly husbands and boyfriends, I think, but, perhaps, not all of them. But everyone -- men and women -- went into deep shock when I asked my boyfriend (not the shoe one; 3rd paycheck, 3rd boyfriend <g>) to step *into the booth* with me when I was changing. Made the exercise worth while :) Sadly, neither the boyfriend nor the suit lasted; the boyfriend got boring (wanted to get married, and I still had 3 yrs of U to go through), and the suit itched -- I'm allergic to nylon (all non-breathing, non-absorbent fibers)...
----- Tamara P Duvall Lexington, Virginia, USA Formerly of Warsaw, Poland http://lorien.emufarm.org/~tpd/
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