Wednesday, May 16, 2001

Is it better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all?

I thought I knew the answer - yes - but now I realize I was wrong.

A new survey found that 80,000 people worldwide lost their millionaire status last year thanks to the drop in the Nasdaq. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I pity the ``minute millionaires.''

Sure, the IPO crowd had a lot more fun than the rest of us for a while, playing billiards in their offices, thinking outside of the box, working in wireless, paperless, workless environments, dining on V.C. money, dressing like slobs. Except for the slob part, I never got to do any of that.

But I know how heartbreaking it is to have riches snatched away from you.

A new Walgreens opened in my neighborhood and the company sent out a get-to-know-us package. Not just coupons, but a check for $10.

You can imagine how I felt when I saw it. Without leaving my apartment, I had already spent the money - several times over. A hair net. A family-size bag of Twizzlers. A nongeneric brand of pain reliever. The priciest tweezer. Gourmet shampoo.

I imagined my new life. The fancy friends I'd have. The summers on the Vineyard with my well-plucked brows and red licorice hors d'oeuvres on the deck. The free-flowing Advil.

I was pretty far gone, until I read the small print and learned that the check was good only for a new or transferred prescription. Just my luck, I don't even need any meds at the moment.

I wasn't back where I started - I was worse off. I had seen, if only in my mind's eye, what heaven on Earth was, and now it was being denied me.

Now that I think about it, many of us suffer minute-millionaire style losses all the time. Losing what we never really had, but got used to, all the same.

The bathroom you have is fine, until you travel for work, stay in a nice hotel on the boss' dime, and come to feel you can't live without a marble shower. Or through some fluke, you get upgraded to first class on a flight to Los Angeles and when you fly next time, in back of the curtain, the leg room seems more cramped than ever.

But it's not just money that stings when it's gone.

I got a haircut the other day, and the blow-dry associate did such a good job that I felt and looked like a new, improved person.

My hair had body, but it was smooth. It swung, but stayed neat. It framed my face perfectly, but not in a helmuty way. Not only did it give me the confidence to enter a Newbury Street boutique, but I was actually acknowledged when I went in. ``How are you today?'' asked the rail-thin clerk (with perfect hair).

Still, a blow dry's even more fleeting than those dot-com companies that advertised during Super Bowl 2000. By the next day, I was back to my old hair, and feeling worse than ever about the weird bumps that form around my ears.

I think the only protection is to be happy with what you have. But that's easy for me to say. I didn't buy CMGI at $163.22 and sell at $1.75.