Bonds. Lame Bonds.

As a poor guy in Manhattan, I've amassed thousands of tips for saving money. I gave up buying newspapers since it's easy to find discarded ones on the subway. I go to gallery openings on hot summer nights for wine and hors d'oeuvres, and also to save on my air conditioning bill. I get my hair cut by trainees at a famous salon for a fraction of their usual charge.

Eventually, though, I approached the age where all those little schemes turned unattractive. When you're a fresh-faced twenty-year old, no matter how poor you are, gallery owners are happy to see you. When you're fifty, though, and wearing castoffs pulled from Goodwill's dollar pile, they don't exactly greet you with flutes of champagne.

Now, I have no problem with being poor: I just don't want to have to worry about it. I don't want to be the cranky old man with the calculator, figuring how much my share of dinner will cost, how little I can leave for a tip, how much I'll have left for the rest of my life. "Let's see," I'd mutter, punching in the numbers with a gnarled fingernail. "I've got fifteen thousand dollars, and maybe twenty-three years left. That gives me three dollars and twelve cents a day. A six-ounce can of Sheba is seventy-nine cents. . . . . "

Fidelity Investments sent me a flyer about retirement planning, and it got me worried enough to stop by their office. I assumed they wouldn't be interested in the measly 401K I'd amassed during a brief period of responsibility, but "Chuck" assured me they were. He said Fidelity had thousands of funds to choose from, some earning as much as 20 percent a year, and asked what kind of return I was currently getting. When I said four percent he stared at me like I'd offered to clean his wingtips with my tongue.

I filled out a stack of paperwork to transfer the money over, and then there was one last decision to make: what fund should I pick? I'm totally bearish on America -- the dollar has dropped so low we're pretty much just a swap meet for foreign tourists -- so stocks were out. I wanted absolute safety, I told Chuck, and he assured me that Fidelity had the perfect fund for that.

Chuck suggested FSHBX, a short-term bond fund with one main objective: DON'T LOSE MONEY. That's more or less my mantra, the reason I still pinned my lunch money to my 2(x)ist briefs, so I agreed. He hit a few buttons on his computer and it was official: I wasn't just an idiot with a 401K plan: I was a guy with a mutual fund.

Once we were done, Chuck pointed me to a conversation nook where a passel of besuited businessmen sat. "Any time you want to do research," he said, "feel free to drop by." He showed me a stack of free newspapers -- The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, the New York Times -- and the coffee-pod machine, also free.

I wiped my eyes, unable to believe my good luck. I was like a frat guy wandering into an Applebee's and discovering the "Deal or No Deal" models mudwrestling inside. My eyes darted from one handsome, prosperous-looking man in pinstripes to another, all chatting happily and sipping free coffee. If they'd had bowl haircuts and an uncontrollable itch they still would have been out of my league.

"I just might do that," I told Chuck.

The next morning I was waiting when they unlocked the door, and I sprinted for the coffee and newspapers. One by one the Prosperous Types appeared. We made eye contact, smiled, exchanged pleasantries. By noon, I knew, somebody'd be naked. I sat back in my chair, feeling like Ferdinand Magellan discovering heaven, and caught some numbers scrolling across the bottom of a TV screen. With a quick, automatic calculation in my head, I realized I'd just lost two hundred bucks.

By eleven o'clock the Prosperous Types were eyeing me curiously. I'd lost four hundred dollars, and was sweating so much passing waterfowl were circling my underarms. I tried to maintain my calm, but with all the newspapers and TVs and computer terminals, it was all too easy to track my account. Every minute it seemed to drop further. Chuck said that usually when stocks go down, bonds go up . . . yet the market dropped and my fund sank too. The market reversed course but my fund continued its way down. Bonds went up, my fund dropped. Bonds went down, drop drop drop.

By mid-afternoon, my hopes for meeting men was ancient history. As I visualized living my golden years in a cardboard box, sex shrank to a distant second space. When they finally threw me out at the end of the day I had a twitch you don't usually get without bent forks and electrical outlets.

Over the next few days I turned into a nervous wreck. I gained a wide-eyed stare of disbelief, a pallor from spending all my time indoors, and wrinkles from worrying about my dwindling savings. Fidelity has a tiny disclaimer on all their paperwork: Past Performance Is No Guarantee Of Future Results. That was absolutely true, I discovered. In fact, tossing dice gave a better clue. After the fund dropped a quarter a share, I decided Chuck and I needed to have a little talk. "This is a 'capital preservation' fund," I reminded him. "Why isn't it preserving my capital?"

He clicked away at his computer. "Well, the fund has some exposure to subprime mortgages. It owns some American Home."

All the blood in my body raced to my head, and if this was a cartoon I'd have morphed into a whistling teakettle. American Home? The subprime mortgage company that just filed for bankruptcy? The folks who'd give a high-interest home loan to a dog that could hold a pen in its mouth? "Correct me if I'm wrong, Chuck, but isn't FSHBX a conservative fund? Why would somebody think subprime mortgages aren't risky?'

He shrugged. "Maybe they weren't back when they bought them."

Chuck tapped more keys and told me the subprime bonds weren't maturing for another year, which meant there was lots of time for a further dive. I couldn't take it: I was trying to find a man here, but I was so nervous watching my portfolio shrink I could hardly keep my coffee down. Nobody wants to date somebody who shakes so much passing strangers ask them for rides.

I told Chuck to sell.

After he filed my order, Chuck had all sorts of suggestions on what to do with the remaining money. I smiled and thanked him. I didn't say that I only take the advice of idiots once.

My money -- what there is left of it -- is still at Fidelity, in their safest money market fund. It's back to earning four percent again. Chuck occasionally suggests better ways to invest it, but I tell him I'm not ready. If I do invest it again, in fact, I'll go for something less risky. Give it to a gypsy to gamble, or hide it in the forest under a rock.

The good news is, I'm much more relaxed at my "research" sessions. Whether the market goes up or down, I read my USA Today and smile. I don't twitch when MSNBC pulls up another graph. I wear the confident smile that tells the Prosperous Types that my portfolio and I are okay now. Eventually they'll forget that I was a wreck, I tell myself as I grab another cup of French Roast.

Really, it's one of the best freebies in New York. Worth about a dollar-fifty a cup.

In five hundred and eighty-seven cups, my calculator says, Fidelity and I will be square.

FSHBX