Budget deficit
Life is so cruel.
Not cruel in the country song (losing your wife, kids, job, dog, truck, favorite NASCAR driver, etc.) sort of way. Cruel in the "I'm going to place heaven right in front of your face so I can sucker punch you in the gut while you're not looking" way. Cruel of the "go ahead and smell the sweetly fragrant roses so you won't notice the 18-wheeler about to make a hood ornament of you" way. It builds you up, buttercup, only to tear you down.
To wit: this morning, when I get up, I notice an e-mail from one of the few mailing lists where I actually read the messages. It seems that one of my favorite bands, Scottish rockers Travis are slated to finally release their fourth album, "12 Memories", and are kicking off a small U.S. tour in support of it that includes a gig at Chicago's fabulous Riviera Theater after I get to town. Score!
As I mentioned, Travis is one of my favorite bands, and the most fun live act I've ever seen. So good are they that I've seen them four separate times: once at the Chicago Theatre, opening for Oasis, then headlining that summer at the Wiltern in Hollywood, followed a few months later with Remy Zero at the Riv, and then another year later, again with Remy Zero, again at the Riv. Needless to say, I don't pass up an opportunity to see Travis.
Except that the tickets to this latest show require, well, money. Somewhere in the vicinity of $35 a pop (damned Ticketbastard with their fictitious "convenience" charges), plus shipping and handling. Now I have money, that's true. Plenty of money, in fact. Money enough to purchase one, two, many Vietnams, er, tickets.
Problem is, the money I do have doesn't quite qualify as "discretionary income". No, it's more like my "anti-starvation and -homelessness" fund. Thus, while I could technically afford a ticket to this concert, I can really only afford it in the sense that it will expedite my journey to becoming hungry and transient, a trip I'd like to postpone as long as possible.
And speaking of trips, here's where life decided to be doubly cruel to me this morning. My mother likes to sign up for commercial mailing lists offering "deals" and the like. Ordinarily I'd say this is a waste of bandwidth, but today one of the mass mailings she received had an offer of particular interest to me, namely a bargain travel package to my beloved Prague. We're talking a weeklong trip, including four nights in a hotel and round-trip airfare from Chicago on Lufthansa for $449! That's an insane price, especially considering that the airfare alone could easily run you twice as much or more. It's the kind of offer I would undoubtedly jump on were I still in school, with a little frugality allowing me to save enough funds from my summer and work-study jobs to buy myself a nice little Czech vacation. But, alas, if I can't afford a measly 35 bucks on a concert ticket, there's no way in the eighth circle of hell I can blow more than 10 times that amount on foreign travel.
Oh to have actual spending money.
What's sad is that I can't say there has been anything else in particular that I've really wanted to buy lately. That is to say, beyond highly practical, utilitarian items, like a bed, or groceries. I've done a damn fine job of scrounging money and pinching my pennies, but my income since June has been limited to the dime I found while walking my dog one afternoon last week.
Look, I really don't want to work. I believe in the Divine Gospel of Office Space and thing there is also much wisdom to be gleaned from Dilbert. But I grudgingly accept the necessary evil that is employment. At least employment of the variety I'm going to have for the next couple of years (or until I'm out on parole). I need money so I can have a place to live other than my parents' house, drink the occasional beer, save a little for grad school and maybe, just maybe, do some fun things like travel to Europe again or see a rock concert. Really, those are the things that give some spice to life, like paprika to some delicious Hungarian goulash, and puncture the monotony of life as a working stiff. What's that old song about it being a five o'clock world?
Not cruel in the country song (losing your wife, kids, job, dog, truck, favorite NASCAR driver, etc.) sort of way. Cruel in the "I'm going to place heaven right in front of your face so I can sucker punch you in the gut while you're not looking" way. Cruel of the "go ahead and smell the sweetly fragrant roses so you won't notice the 18-wheeler about to make a hood ornament of you" way. It builds you up, buttercup, only to tear you down.
To wit: this morning, when I get up, I notice an e-mail from one of the few mailing lists where I actually read the messages. It seems that one of my favorite bands, Scottish rockers Travis are slated to finally release their fourth album, "12 Memories", and are kicking off a small U.S. tour in support of it that includes a gig at Chicago's fabulous Riviera Theater after I get to town. Score!
As I mentioned, Travis is one of my favorite bands, and the most fun live act I've ever seen. So good are they that I've seen them four separate times: once at the Chicago Theatre, opening for Oasis, then headlining that summer at the Wiltern in Hollywood, followed a few months later with Remy Zero at the Riv, and then another year later, again with Remy Zero, again at the Riv. Needless to say, I don't pass up an opportunity to see Travis.
Except that the tickets to this latest show require, well, money. Somewhere in the vicinity of $35 a pop (damned Ticketbastard with their fictitious "convenience" charges), plus shipping and handling. Now I have money, that's true. Plenty of money, in fact. Money enough to purchase one, two, many Vietnams, er, tickets.
Problem is, the money I do have doesn't quite qualify as "discretionary income". No, it's more like my "anti-starvation and -homelessness" fund. Thus, while I could technically afford a ticket to this concert, I can really only afford it in the sense that it will expedite my journey to becoming hungry and transient, a trip I'd like to postpone as long as possible.
And speaking of trips, here's where life decided to be doubly cruel to me this morning. My mother likes to sign up for commercial mailing lists offering "deals" and the like. Ordinarily I'd say this is a waste of bandwidth, but today one of the mass mailings she received had an offer of particular interest to me, namely a bargain travel package to my beloved Prague. We're talking a weeklong trip, including four nights in a hotel and round-trip airfare from Chicago on Lufthansa for $449! That's an insane price, especially considering that the airfare alone could easily run you twice as much or more. It's the kind of offer I would undoubtedly jump on were I still in school, with a little frugality allowing me to save enough funds from my summer and work-study jobs to buy myself a nice little Czech vacation. But, alas, if I can't afford a measly 35 bucks on a concert ticket, there's no way in the eighth circle of hell I can blow more than 10 times that amount on foreign travel.
Oh to have actual spending money.
What's sad is that I can't say there has been anything else in particular that I've really wanted to buy lately. That is to say, beyond highly practical, utilitarian items, like a bed, or groceries. I've done a damn fine job of scrounging money and pinching my pennies, but my income since June has been limited to the dime I found while walking my dog one afternoon last week.
Look, I really don't want to work. I believe in the Divine Gospel of Office Space and thing there is also much wisdom to be gleaned from Dilbert. But I grudgingly accept the necessary evil that is employment. At least employment of the variety I'm going to have for the next couple of years (or until I'm out on parole). I need money so I can have a place to live other than my parents' house, drink the occasional beer, save a little for grad school and maybe, just maybe, do some fun things like travel to Europe again or see a rock concert. Really, those are the things that give some spice to life, like paprika to some delicious Hungarian goulash, and puncture the monotony of life as a working stiff. What's that old song about it being a five o'clock world?
posted by Alexander Dubcek | 01:55
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