Dear J-
Tomorrow I get to try again with this jury service; I promise to avoid an excessively large hamburger for lunch, which is not to preclude the consumption of multiple smaller patties of ground meat. The NHL Entry Draft has come and gone, with three Chiefs being named (Tokarski went on the second day, while Chet Pickard of the Tri-City Americans, the other stellar WHL ‘tender this year went in the first round: such is the power of having watched Carey Price in your formative years). The draft ran as expected, with the exception of Justin Azevedo slipping down further than I would have expected merely on the basis of his size. Then again, what would I be doing here ranting aimlessly if I had any sort of demonstrated ability to pick players?
I find myself carelessly, casually bleeding money as though it came in the mail safely ensconced amongst the preapproved credit flyers. We go out nowadays and expect to drop $25 a meal, including tip; it starts to add up when much of your weekend entertainment revolves around new flavor frontiers. The pain isn’t as apparent when you flash your plastic everywhere — even the burger places are happy to accept your credit cards now — but it leads to an unrealistic sense of how much you’re actually spending. Figure that half my check gets consumed in taxes, retirement accounts, healthcare, and other necessities, and suddenly $25 isn’t looking like a thin slice, it’s a significant, measurable amount of my time.
One of my friends loaned her son her ATM card to go pick up some cereal and milk. He comes back, puts the groceries away, and hands the receipt and card back — $100 later. The cashier had made a mistake, charging him for eight boxes of chocolate-covered strawberries he swore he never bought (I would need to know more about his social life to verify the veracity of his tale, but his mom swears it was believable), but rather than question the bill’s magnitude, he just covered it with the ATM card and went home. We lose perspective on prices without the exchange of (now brightly-colored) bits of paper and metal.
Mike
Tags: bill, burger, cash, credit, draft, grocery, money, nhl, pickard, plastic, receipt, salary
