Recently I spent a weekend in Las Vegas. While walking through the
casino at Mandalay Bay, I passed the nickel video slots and thought "when
in Rome...". So I sat down and put in a dollar. Being a Las
Vegas virgin, I wasn't sure how the machine worked. It wasn't like the slot
machines on TV with the big huge handle to pull. [Insert your snickering
here.] You have to push a combination
of buttons either on the screen or in front of you. The machine then made
beeping sounds and the pictures on the screen move and then it told me I lost.

By the third dollar I felt I had finally figured out the
object of the game. Just as I was about to lose the last of my points, the
screen started blinking and beeping for each point it was adding to my total.
For several minutes it kept adding points until it finally stopped. Being horrible at math I had no idea how much money the points
represented. I figured it was about 150 bucks. I was way off. It was
$389.90.

After collecting my winnings, I started thinking about what I could do with the
money. I figured since I wasn't expecting to win anything during this
trip, I could consider
this mad money and splurge on something. In the hotel room, I was thinking
about possible purchases when The Suze Orman Show came on CNN. I listened to Suze
console and advise her callers on their financial concerns and worries.
Once the program ended I felt like a huge loser with too many bills and
revolving debt. So when I got home I took my winnings to the bank and made
an additional payment on my credit card. Then I went to Half Priced Books
and purchased a used copy of The 9 Nine Steps To Financial Freedom.

The first step is identifying your earliest memory when you realize what money meant
and what it could do. After reading examples from her former clients, her
own story and delving into my own past while sifting through many distant forgotten memories,
I realized Suze's first step is built on the cornerstone of all spiritual and psychological
enlightenment: our parents fucked us up.

Think about it. Who else would have formed our first impressions about the
power of the dollar than Dear Old Mom and/or Dad? Suze's litany of
questions to ask yourself for this exercise all have something to do with
your parents. Your home. Your clothes. Your allowance. All things
your parents provided you. Did your parents fight about money? Did
you take vacations? What did your parents tell you about money?
Everything can be traced back to them.

It's the same with therapy. Where does all therapy end up going? The
past. Who was in your past? Dear Old Mom and/or Dad. One of my
favorite songs by Dar Williams is her ode to therapy "What Do You Hear In
These Sounds." In it she sings about her and her therapist, "We
fathom all the mysteries, explicit and inherent. When I hit a rut, she
says to try the other parent." Case closed.

So it's true. Dear Old Mom and/or Dad are to blame. I was
pure. A zero balance. A clean slate. Financially innocent and
then they soiled me. They did this to me! They are
just bastard people.

Of course I'm pretty sure Suze didn't intend for me to come to this particular revelation
while going through this exercise. She'd probably tell me that placing blame on
others isn't being honest with myself. After all Dear Old Mom and/or Dad
aren't the reason I have credit card debt or why I rent instead of own, or why
I'd rather buy shoes instead of new furniture. I did this, so I
have to fix it.

Damn that Suze. She's bastard people too.

On to Step 2.