The Indelible Mark of a Big Spender

So what am I supposed to do with all of these carbons from credit-card receipts? Waiters and sales clerks have been presenting them to me as if I’m being given the key to one of Mrs. Marcos’ secret safe-deposit boxes.

The other day, at the close of a transaction that consisted of my charging two gallons of white paint on a credit card, Mr. Mueller, the proprietor of our local hardware store, handed over my carbons with such a flourish that for a moment I was afraid he might kiss me on both cheeks, as if I had just been awarded the French Legion of Honor.

I would, of course, know exactly what to do with one of those little rosettes they give you to show that you’ve been awarded the French Legion of Honor. I might as well admit that now and then I have allowed myself to imagine a ceremony at which a Legion of Honor comes my way--awarded, perhaps, to express the gratitude of the French nation to that American tourist who demonstrated his appreciation for the national cuisine by setting an all-France record for number of garlic sausages consumed in a single day. But how would I look with two pieces of carbon paper dangling from the buttonhole of my lapel?

“So what am I supposed to do with these things?” I asked my wife, thrusting a fist full of crumpled carbon paper at her when I returned from Mueller’s.

“Don’t you dare get near the couch until you’ve washed your hands,” she said.

“Is that all you have to say?” I replied.

“No, it isn’t,” she said. “Also, don’t you dare get near the couch until you’ve painted the back bedroom.”

It occurred to me, as I was painting the back bedroom, that the credit-card companies are often giving me things for which I have not demonstrated a pressing need. They never ask. They’re like some loony uncle who shows up one evening and, when questioned about why he arrived in a rented panel truck, announces with great pleasure that he has decided to present you with the entire collection of Boy’s Life magazines that he began in 1937.

There have been times when a credit-card bill arrives in an envelope so thick that I am afraid to open it. I put it on the kitchen counter and glance at it occasionally, trying to reconstruct the moments of excess that could have produced in one short month a full half-inch of credit-card receipts.

I begin to envision a table of 10 or 12 people at an overpriced restaurant of the kind I used to call La Maison de la Casa House, Continental Cuisine. It’s late in the evening. The waiter puts the check before a particularly bleary-eyed member of the party. It’s me! I look around for the companions I had considered likely to act as the evening’s host. They seem to have chosen that moment to seek out the restrooms. I glance over at my wife for advice. For the first time, I notice that she is looking especially splendid that evening--although superimposed on every item of her clothing is an enlarged reproduction of a credit-card receipt, flashing on and off in an eerie fluorescent glow. The prices are enormous. The dinner check is enormous. My wife shrugs, indicating that I seem to be stuck. I reach into my jacket for my wallet. I notice that my own jacket has a credit-card receipt flashing on and off: $525. How could anyone spend $525 for a jacket? Wait a minute! I’ve had that jacket since college. It cost $58.50! The picture fades.

I walk over to the kitchen counter and rip open the bill. Its thickness had nothing to do with receipts. The only charges all month were for some Chinese take-out and a half-dozen light bulbs at Mueller’s. The thickness came from advertisements--advertisements for a room audio-visual system and for a radar scanner and for an overnight bag that fits into your shirt pocket but unfolds to accommodate 73 suits and a room audio-visual system. The credit-card company wants to send me a few things I didn’t ask for.

“And what about those ads they attach to the return envelopes so you have to tear off a coupon for ordering British commando night-binoculars before you can seal the envelope?” I said to my older daughter, who had walked into the back bedroom to see how I was coming along with the painting. “I didn’t ask for those either.”

My daughter told me that I should calm down; I was splattering paint on the floor. But it was not easy to get all of this off my mind: My daughter was wearing a fine-looking new blazer, and I couldn’t help wondering where the carbons from the receipts for it were.

“What am I supposed to do with all these carbons?” I asked her. “And don’t tell me to file them under ‘C.’ ”

“Well,” she said, “you could put them into the return envelope you’ve just torn the British commando night-binoculars ad off of, and send them back.”

I put down my paint brush. Then I got out my carbons from Mueller’s. Then I pinned them on the lapel of my daughter’s blazer. Then I kissed her on both cheeks.