More or Less for Your Money

I have never been genuinely poor. There has always been enough money for me and my family to have everything we need (food, shelter, clothing) and many of the things we simply want (books, electronics, and in my case, hats). On the other hand, I have never been genuinely rich. I have always had to watch how money is spent and only in the last few years have I been able to buy things like furniture at a store which only sold furniture and didn’t also offer t-shirts, shampoo and car batteries (all too often I was forced to go to the store which shall not be named, Volde-Mart).

Because of this fact of life I pay attention to the value I get when I spend money. I know full well buying the cheapest often means I get the least. The dirt cheap breakfast cereal may mean eating the box would be more pleasurable. The cheapest generic brand of tissue may be akin to using those brown paper towels from schools (one abrasion level below sandpaper) on your poor allergy-ridden nose. The cheapest bath towel may only be pleasant to touch in the store and then oddly share more characteristics with plywood than with cottony goodness after it absorbs the first bit of moisture from your just-out-of-the-shower body. Those are choices which make the occasionally splurge moments (breakfast cereal with the picture of an anthropomorphic tiger, tissue with moisturizer added and a bath towel with enough fluffy to make a chinchilla jealous) all that much more hedonistic.

Then there are the times spending less money gets your more. Case in point: hotels. There have been a couple times I stayed in a high dollar fancy hotel and I have to say I prefer the middle of the road ones. (Full disclosure: I have also stayed in motels where the sidewalks are intentionally angled to make it easier to hose off the unfortunate bodily fluids left behind by certain “guests”.) The chain motels offer extra stuff with no extra charge. I want to stay at a place which has breakfast in the lobby, wi-fi in the room and a mini-fridge with nothing in it. The last time I stayed at a true hotel I was forced to walk down the street to the fast food joint for breakfast rather than spend the price of airfare to Orlando for a glass of orange juice. I had to use my debit card in the business center to pay the per minute charge for internet access in order to transfer money from my savings account to the debit account to pay for the weak moment of having a soda from the mini-bar which, judging from the price, must have both powdered diamonds and essence of unicorn as ingredients.

The two entities currently sucking up the most money in my life are also the two entities that could not care less about me.

I spend, what to me is, an obscene amount of money each month for health insurance. Does this corporation (which according to the Supreme Court is a person and therefore must have empathy and concern for its fellow man) promptly pay each expense submitted to it by the health care professionals and cover each and every health concern we might come across? Not so much. I have to fill out new forms over and over swearing on a stack of holy books in addition to my original pinkie swear that I do not have any supplementary insurance each time a family member sees a doctor. The only time I could meet my deductible would be if I had a baby and I do mean if I, not my wife, physically birthed a child.

The other money sucking, debt producing entity in my financial life is the university my eldest daughter is attending. Ah, college life. Where else can one explore the mysteries of the world, gain the wisdom of the ages and be shoehorned into a residence which makes your average sardine in a can living arrangements seem downright palatial? Also, where else can you give somebody thousands of dollars and they get to tell you what to do and how to do it? The “I pay you so you work for me” dynamic is all screwed up here. If some Goldman Sachs guy gave me that much money he’d think he could make me get his dry cleaning (from Bangladesh on foot), wash his car (with my tongue) and make his coffee (growing the beans in my living room). He might be right.

Christopher Pyle simply wants to be rich enough to “call the guy” anytime something breaks. He can be contacted at occasionallykeen@yahoo.com.