Still Paying Hats

There is a particular kind of long-term relationship that nobody describes as one. It began at eighteen, on the advice of adults who meant well, and it has followed you through several jobs, at least one city and a career you did not expect to have. It has a monthly rhythm. It knows your bank details. It is, by some distance, the longest commitment most people make before forty. The specific comedy of it is the arithmetic. You pay, on time, every month, for years, and the number does not behave the way a number ought to behave. Interest is not a malfunction — it is the product working exactly as designed — which is the part that tips the whole thing from grievance into absurdity. Nobody was deceived. Everyone was eighteen. These are worn by the borrower and pointed at the arithmetic, not at a political position. There is no slogan here and nothing to argue with at a family dinner. The joke is simply that the degree is long finished and the payment is not, and that this is so ordinary it barely gets mentioned.