I was swindled.
Blindsided by a kid I could have sworn was half my IQ.
Sold an absolute dummy by a ragdoll mutt with unwashed hair and a pimple – something the rest of us wouldn’t see for years yet.
It must have been around Year 4 at school, and aside from my uncle pointing to my chest and slapping me in the face with the palm of his hand when I looked down, I was yet to be hustled.
I wasn’t the smartest kid in class, but I held my own – more intent chasing a ball around the oval than burning Bunsens in the lab, if you catch my drift.
But there were rainy days, and we’d guard our collection of marbles under lock and key until it was time to play.
And we competed for keeps, usually only risking our common marbles in the field of battle.
There he was – this kid, hair covering his face with that one gleaming zit poking through.
He wasn’t part of our group, but I’d seen him play and he couldn’t have hit the side of a barn with a tom bowler.
For some reason, he had his eye on a big glass marble that my grandfather had given me. Mum told me never to take it to school, but I was proud of this thing that must have been straight out of the start of the 20th century.
Ratty-hair wanted a piece of it. But he didn’t dive in. Instead, he challenged me. His second shiniest, cleanest bomb against one of my common glass moons.
Not his best, but I wasn’t risking much and we played. The game must have lasted no longer than a minute, ending with me striking his prized possession three times, one of them from a good distance.
He hadn’t learned – or so I thought. Pimple-buster put up his top dog marble, but only if I threw my prized vintage stone into the ring.
Some 60 years later, the heckling rings in my ear. I had his number, so I entered the coliseum.
And lost.
From the other side of the room, he hurled that shiny sucker right into my heart, taking my World War I marble along with my pride.
I took advice from my mates.
Sadly, that’s what a survey released last week tells us young people are doing with their finances, treating money like a schoolyard commodity.
Sure, I was angry as a bewildered 10-year-old that I’d lost my marbles.
But not half as angry as I’d be as a conned 25-year-old who’d lost my house.
I was gobsmacked to read that 40% of people aged 18-34 in our part of the country would turn to TikTok and Facebook for financial advice.
Some figured that because mum and dad own a house that they are the keepers of all fiscal knowledge.
We can, dear children, be trusted. But we are not all employed to be experts in the world of interest and investments.
Other, smarter ones would turn to financial websites and blogs, and maybe even a qualified consultant.
Those more dimwitted souls who think the internet can be banked upon have found scammers preying on their hunger for a thing that’s usually too good to be true.
There’s even a name for the hunter – “finfluencers”. Sounds like they’ve hit up a Dolphins supporter at the bar in Suncorp for a few banking tips.
At least that would be in person. You’d be able to see the fraud taking money from your wallet.
Young people, it would seem, are happier dishing out details to a dodgy shark than attaining what the banks would call “financial resilience”. Polite.
When we bought a house, we didn’t have the internet or mobile phones to hide behind. We went to a bank, and spoke to the bank manager who poured a cup of coffee.
Hey Wanda. Do you remember that ratty kid from school? I wonder if he’s still got my marbles.
“No Wayne,” she says. “You lost them long ago.”
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