Three Thousand Dollars – David Lipsky



And now we hit a point in the BASS series where people of my generation start to see some names that are more familiar than say…James Lee Burke.

Nothing against Mr. Burke!

It’s just that I think David Lipsky is…known.

I find myself recollecting my college days again with this story.

During my junior, I dated a girl who went to school in the next state over.

New Hampshire.

Having a girlfriend 1.5 hours away wasn’t all that bad. Allowed me some space to get my studies done…and when the weekend rolled around, either she would spend the weekend on our campus – or I’d jump in the car and have a nice break from mine.

Side note - With all the shit I give my dad on this blog, at least the guy was there for me financially – when it came to school. He helped out with tuition and even paid child support monthly until I was 21. His child support money went into an account where I was able to tap into the funds for school books, supplies and uniform needs. Of course, a certain percentage of that money went towards beer and cigarettes. College right? (I was still buying cigs with pennies come the end of the month.)

Back to my Junior year. I can’t remember exactly when it was, but my dad gave me a calling card number that would allow me to call him or my mother down in Virginia from the hall phone across from my room in my dorm. It was cheaper than calling collect or me feeding quarters into the pay phone in the basement.

Well, having a girlfriend some distance away…and being a college male…I lost my right mind and used that card to call her.

Every night.

Well, the minutes added up, and one day my father called and wondered why he had received a bill from the phone company for several hundred dollars noting pages of call records from a phone in Vermont to another in New Hampshire.

That put an end to the calling card privileges.

It wasn’t $3,000 but it was the trust I violated.

It left a deep enough impression that I find myself writing about it here today years later.

Sorry Dad.

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