I’ve been half-waiting for my stimulus check for a while. I don’t do my taxes or have any clue what’s going on, but a check sounded nice. So when my mom came to visit I asked if I got a check at home. I figured it could have been something like my diploma that she didn’t mention when it arrived.

My mom suggested I check my bank account, because apparently I was signed up for direct deposit. I keep track of my finances the way I always kept track of my grades: Just do your best and assume you’ll be fine without ever bothering to check.

Flashback: Last week, walking out of the bank with Nick during my lunch break. “I have more money than I thought,” I said to him. “Neat.”

Okay, back to this weekend. Yep, I checked my account online and there was my $300 stimulus check, deposited a while ago while I slept. Also my tax rebate.

So that was dumb. It’s less fun getting money if you don’t properly notice.

Really, though, I think it’s pretty interesting how people have been buying into the stimulus check idea. (UPDATE: Oh, wow, I really didn’t intend that pun.) There’s just no reason not to, though the whole things still seems like a fishy government scheme. Give people money so they go spend it. What? Well ha. I thwarted the government by not noticing the money it gave me. Now it doesn’t feel like free money anymore and I probably won’t spend it on anything fun. I can’t think of anything fun anyway that fits $300. Everything I want is apparently very expensive or not that expensive. I could not buy a plane ticket or round-trip train fare or a better video camera. I could buy way too much Tofutti (75 pints) or … I was going to make this a list but I can’t even think of any other frivolous things I want. Mechanical pencils? Adorable small notebooks? Everything I actually want to buy is boring, like dental floss and Ziploc baggies and socks.

Best bets would be a couple magazine subscriptions and the rest on books. Maybe a kitten.