Ding Ding Ding

“The unfolding war in Iran took a deadly turn today …” squawked the radio in my ute.

I glanced at my son in the rear-view mirror, strapped into his booster seat, and switched it off.

We had business to attend to.

“Were here, mate,” I said, without needing to.

He was already wriggling out of his booster seat like a magician escaping a straitjacket.

For a brief moment we stood holding hands, watching a giant conveyor belt swallow empty bottles one by one.

Every time it swallowed one:

‘Ding.’

Ten cents.

‘Ding. Ding. Ding.’

Forty cents flashed on the analogue scoreboard.

Something stirred inside me that I genuinely cannot explain. I am a grown man. I have written books about money. But standing there at that collection depot with my five-year-old son, I felt five years old myself.

My mind started racing. We should go to Bunnings and get one of those Gorilla trailers. We could raid Romsey for every yellow bin in sight and make out like bandits.

DING!

My son felt it too. He squeezed my hand and then began shovelling bottles like he was feeding one of his hungry orphan pet lambs.

I told one of my newspaper editors about it. She went to the tip recently herself, fresh off a camping trip that was apparently very well hydrated. She fed the machine for twenty minutes and walked away with twelve bucks.

“All that work,” she said. “For twelve dollars.”

Same machine. Same ding. Completely different reaction.

We heard treasure. She heard an hourly rate.

And that's the shift: at some point money stops feeling like treasure and starts feeling like homework. The numbers get bigger. The feeling gets smaller.

The first dollar you ever earned felt like all the money on earth. You remember it. Today your mortgage repayment does not feel like anything, even if it’s the smartest financial move you’ve ever made.

I’m not saying go fossick for bottles. I’m saying if the only time your kids ever see you with money is when you’re paying bills and sighing, that’s the story they’ll grow up believing.

They’re watching how you feel about it.

My son collected forty-three bottles. He made $4.30.

“This was the best day,” he said on the drive home.

The radio stayed off.

Tread Your Own Path!