W.T. Fallon's Blog, page 2
March 27, 2018
Restaurants from the 90s That Have Gone the Way of Photomat, and Why I Don’t Miss Them
So I’ll name several:
Bonanza
Most locations have closed but it appears a few may still be around, although some may be called “Ponderosa” or “Home Style Dining.” Supposedly the chain emerged from a bankruptcy filing in 2009, but clearly its heyday is over.
We used to eat there all the time. All-you-can-eat slop. I never liked anything on the menu. Just cheap crap for people who want to eat ridiculous portion sizes cheap. I remembered the ham cut into perfect little cubes. I didn’t care for the taste but I loved the look of the cubes. (I no longer eat meat but did as a kid.)
[image error]Why I don’t Miss the Bonanza Slophouse
Pizza Inn
OMFG how I HATED that we ate there every fucking Saturday because they had all-you- can-eat pizza and it was cheap, and my dad wanted to stuff his face with all-you-can-eat slop. Problem was, while I generally liked pizza, I HATED Pizza Inn’s because the quality was so bad. It was like eating cardboard. Truly awful. I remember the fake-wood bowls. I liked the bowls even though I didn’t like any of the food. Mostly I would get broccoli and drench it in ranch dressing, until I could barely taste the broccoli. I will never understand how that disgusting dump stayed in business as long as it did. I used to beg my parents to go to a real pizza place like Pizza Hut or Chuckie Cheese, you know, somewhere that the pizza actually tasted like pizza, but they said it was too expensive. No all-you-can-eat menu. (Pizza Inn is apparently still in business, but the one in my city went under years ago, for which my tastebuds are eternally grateful.)
[image error]
Ryan’s Restaurant
Another all-you-can-eat-crap disaster restaurant. Like Golden Corral, which is also sadly still in business, it was one of those restaurants that had a strategy: The first month they were open, the food was good quality. Then once they got people thinking how great it was for the price, they’d swap in the crap ingredients. I SWEAR the food tasted totally different three months after they opened than the week they opened. Ultimately the only things I could eat there were the dinner rolls and honey butter. It takes a lot to fuck up bread. Everything else was awful. You know the desert bar with candy to put in the ice cream? They had these little chocolate candies that looked like M&M’s but tasted like a cheap imitation. BECAUSE THEY WERE. Seriously, I looked one time and they did NOT have the M stamped on them. THEY LITERALLY FUCKING SERVED KNOCKOFF M&M’S, HOW FUCKING CHEAP CAN YOU BE? I mean, it’s not like M&M’s are that damn expensive, especially if you were to buy them in bulk for a chain restaurant. We’re not talking caviar here. (Again, still in business but not where I live anymore. Good riddance.)
If there’s one near you, go check out the chocolate candies and tell me if they’re still fake. If they’ve upgraded to the real thing, I will take back my criticism of their knockoff candy.
[image error]
What restaurants do you remember from when you were a kid?
W. T. Fallon is the author of Fail to the Chief, a political satire in which the presidential election is carried out via reality show, which is much less bizarre and far-fetched as our current reality.
February 20, 2018
How to File Your Taxes With Snark
So I’m trying to do my taxes, and TurboTax gives me this tax questionnaire. Among the list of tax questions 2017, here are some of the interesting ones…and my snarky answers that I can’t give the IRS because there’s no place on the fucking form to insert sarcasm. (But WHY NOT?)
Tax Questions 2017
Did you die before filing this tax return?
No, I am not filing as a ghost. But I bet Edward Cullen and the rest of the post-life community appreciate this option.
Do you have children or financially support another person? If you’re not sure, select yes and we’ll help you figure it out.
Are there people who aren’t sure if they have children, or is that just for people who aren’t sure if letting their adult child who has two college degrees and three jobs and still can’t afford to rent an apartment in the current shitconomy live with them counts as financially supporting her? (No, it doesn’t, according to the IRS. Believe me, my parents were bummed. They haven’t been able to claim me as a dependent since the first time I graduated college.)
I’m just picturing some guy sitting in front of his computer, scratching his head and thinking, “Well, I had a lot of fun in college, and I think I used a love glove MOST of the time, so probably I don’t have any kids, but, um…I’m not sure? Maybe I should add one just in case?”
Check all that apply:
I did not actively participate in the operation of this business.
I WISH. I work for myself. I can’t afford employees. I do fucking EVERYTHING.
This business is located in a Qualified Disaster Area.
I work at home. Does my room count? I can provide pictures of what it looks like.
[image error]My Home Office, Where I Do My Taxes
[image error]
Did you own or control a foreign bank account, trust, or financial asset in 2017?
I SO FUCKING WISH.
Did you make any donations to charity in 2017?
Does my own bank account count, because it’s in really sorry shape?
How Do You File Taxes When Your Parents Aren’t Country Club Members?
After completing a preliminary list of questions, I realized I had either added something wrong, or forgotten to subtract some expenses for one of my businesses (online reselling, freelance work online), because apparently I owed $3,000 in taxes. Still trying to figure out how that happened when I only made about $17,000. I mean, I KNOW I’m not rich enough for a billionaire, country-club-friend-of-the-president tax cut, but jeez, I shouldn’t owe that much on that little income. Of course, if I was a billionaire, I would probably owe nothing because saving me money would be a national priority.
I went back and added all the money I wasted on health insurance I never use, plus dental insurance, and even that didn’t reduce my tax bill any. I also deducted car mileage, gas, maintaining a business address at a mailboxes type store so customers I sell stuff to can’t show up and stalk me if they happen to be psychopaths, and every other expense I could think of. Still stuck at three grand.
So I will go back and look at my taxes again and try to figure out where I went wrong (other than being born to people who weren’t part of the 1%). I hate doing my taxes.
Anyway, that’s how I file my taxes…sarcastically. In between screaming profanities at my computer screen. How do you file taxes?
W. T. Fallon is the author of Fail to the Chief, a political satire in which the presidential election is carried out via reality show, which is much less bizarre and far-fetched as our current reality.
December 18, 2017
Can You Really Have the Perfect Yoga Body With This Overpriced Contraption?
In the past I’ve written a lot about ads I encounter for products I view to be a ripoff. One was for the frozen yogurt robot—call now to invest in one because all the best locations are going fast! (Strangely, neither I nor any of my readers have ever actually seen one anywhere. Guess we’re not hanging out in any of the best locations, huh?)
Well, recently I’ve seen some ads popping up in my Facebook feed for a yoga trapeze. You just hang it from your ceiling, climb into it, swing like you’re the life of the party hanging off the chandelier, and supposedly you’ll be fit and in shape and pain-free. Yes, that’s right, if you purchase this thing you too can have the perfect yoga body in no time!
[image error]
The ads also promise you’ll be free of back pain in no time! I don’t know about that. I mean, I don’t have any back pain, but I feel like if I used this contraption I would by the time I was finished.
Actually, if I was a personal injury lawyer, I’d forget all about chasing ambulances and just buy a Facebook ad targeting people who have been injured by this thing. You know they’re out there.
Oh, but just for the hell of it I went to their website and checked out a few more pictures of the fabulous yoga trapeze. Look at this one.
[image error]
Act now and you too can do yoga while dangling from a random tree in the forest!
[image error]
Perform the splits while wearing a weird take on parachute pants (not included)!
The ads say the trapeze “gives you instant traction” but I feel like what they mean is “will instantly put you in traction if you do one of these moves wrong.”
Am I wrong? I don’t have any money to buy and try one of these things to see if I am or not, so if you’ve used this thing and found that it wasn’t hazardous to your health, please let me know in the comments.
Also, I’ve been hearing a lot of radio ads for guinea pigs lately. Well, that’s not what they say, of course. They start off with some treacly speech about how they understand your problem’s, or your kid’s problems, complete with a lengthy speech about your kid’s favorite color and interests and how there’s more to him than his diagnosed illness. Then they offer the opportunity to “learn about the safety, efficacy, and tolerability of an investigational medication to treat {insert illness here}.”
In case you’re wondering, what all that crap means is, “We want to use you as a guinea pig for a completely untested medication that could kill you.”
Of course I get that if no one signed up for these things, new drugs would never get approved. Still, I don’t think I’d want to be the guinea pig, especially considering that many of these drugs treat things that aren’t all that serious. For a long time they were trying to get parents to sign their kids up to be a guinea pig for an acne treatment. The really funny thing was that the ad even stated there was a specific number of zits and “hard bumps” your skin could have to get into this “study of the safety, tolerability, and efficacy of an investigational medication.” Can you imagine calling up this place and saying, “I have 26 zits but one is almost gone, can I get in even though the ad said 15-25 zits? Also, what if one of my zits is a hard bump and not a zit? How can I tell? If I pop it trying to figure out if it’s a zit, does it still count as a zit?”
I’m almost tempted to call just to mess with them.
Then this afternoon I heard a commercial for an approved drug that’s supposed to help people deal with withdrawal symptoms when quitting smoking. While I generally think that’s a good idea if it helps people quit, I have to say I was pretty unimpressed after hearing the whole ad. The list of side effects included irritability, anger, mood changes, behavioral changes, and trouble concentrating. Honestly, the side effects sounded like the very withdrawal effects the drug was supposed to fix!
October 31, 2017
Vitamin Pills are NOT Treats and Other Times I Called Bullshit on Halloween
I remember one Halloween when I was 7 or 8, walking around the mall. My parents always took me to the stupid mall because they thought I’d get kidnapped walking around a street. Only a handful of stores had anything good.
[image error]
So I come up on this vitamin store and say “Trick or treat.” The guy gives me a little paper cup with a pill.
“What’s this? Where’s the candy?”
“Oh, that’s a vitamin pill. It’s much better for you than candy, take it.”
Well, there was no way I was going to do that.
So then my dad was like, “It’s okay, you can take it,” because apparently he didn’t think the vitamin store people were trying to poison the little kids at the mall. Also, back in the nineties, there was no Facebook and none of those dumb memes suggesting drug dealers are going to give away hundreds of dollars in drugs that look like candy to random brats on the street.
I still refused to take the pill. For one thing, who knew how clean the vitamin store guy’s hands were. (I’ve always been a slight germaphobe. When I was six, I started turning off the sink with a paper towel because I reasoned that if your hands were dirty when you turned the faucet on, you were just picking up all those germs you just washed away turning it back off. My mom was horrified and thought I was going crazy. But, like many geniuses, I wasn’t crazy—I was just ahead of my time. Today the CDC recommends that exact method to stop the spread of illness.)
But more importantly, I wanted candy, not a fucking pill. I told the guy no and walked on to the next store. My big regret is that I didn’t go back and play a trick on those vitamin store assholes, because the social contract says, “trick OR treat,” and they sure as shit didn’t provide me with a treat. Seriously, if you give out vitamins instead of candy, you deserve to have your house egged and toilet papered.
I did, however, tell every little kid I passed going the other way to avoid the vitamin store because they didn’t have any candy.
I also hated the places that gave out stickers or cheap toys that weren’t even as good as a Happy Meal toy. Like, what am I going to do with a plastic ring shaped like a spider or a pumpkin the day after Halloween? That Milky Way or Reese’s peanut butter cup would still taste good tomorrow. And if I wanted a fucking sticker, I’d go to the doctor’s office. Kids want candy, not cheap junk.
And if you’re passing out those cheap-ass Starlight Mints for Halloween, just turn your damn lights off and don’t bother. No one wants those things, either. Ditto for the Dum-Dum Pops.
Then there was the year that they had some fake psychic in the mall giving ” palm readings.” I assume they were free because my parents never had any money to pay for anything. I remember the woman asked me how old I was, and I told her 12. She then looked at my palm, traced a few lines, and rattled off something that sounded like every horoscope ever written. I let her finish, then I said, “You’re just making stuff up. I’m 10, not 12. If you were a real psychic, you’d know that.”
I wish I had a picture of her face, but sadly back then no one had cell phones with cameras on them. So you’ll just have to take my word for it, it was epic. I mean, how embarrassed would you be if you got outsmarted by a ten-year-old?
What are some of your Halloween memories? Did you call bullshit on anyone? What treats did you hate?
[image error]
October 22, 2017
Lazy Millennial Gives Advice on How to Make Ends Meet
Wondering how to succeed as a Millennial? First of all, welcome to Millennialhood, you lazy, unmotivated slug. Don’t take offense, I’m also a lazy, unmotivated Millennial. At least, that’s what I hear twenty times a day, from Baby Boomers or Gen Xers. Anyway, I’m going to look up from my phone screen just long enough to give you some advice.
(Just kidding, I’m typing this shit on my phone screen.)
Now, where was I….oh yeah, advice. Did you recently graduate? Are you unable to find a job in your field? Working two or three low-paying jobs and still unable to move out of your parents’ house because you can’t afford the bills you already have, let alone rent? Wondering what happened to your twenties?
Well, there’s a solution to your problems, according to many members of our parents’ generations. The solution is: Stop being lazy, get off your phone, get a job, and work hard at it. It’s that simple!
What’s that? You work hard at your job and still make minimum wage? Well, that’s your fault. Obviously if you were really working hard instead of staring at your phone or watching Netflix or tweeting all day, you’d have received a raise or been promoted. Quit whining and get a second job.
Oh, you’ve got one of those too? Well, quit whining, your parents worked minimum wage jobs in the seventies and they didn’t whine about it.
Of course, they actually had, like, ten times as much buying power on a minimum wage job as you do. Want to see some proof?
[image error]
See how far apart those lines were in the seventies, the eighties, even the nineties? Now see how close together they are today? Since 2009, minimum wage has lost almost 10 percent (9.6% to be exact) of its purchasing power. Don’t even get me started on how much its purchasing power has decreased since our parents were “working hard” for minimum wage. Sure, things might have been tough for them, but however tough it was, it is much, much tougher for our generation. We are literally working longer hours for less pay than our parents’ generation, while simultaneously being called lazier than our parents’ generation. Let that sink in.
Now ask yourself, why are Millennials so poor? Why are so many Millennials broke? Why are Millennials so stressed? Those lines smushed up against each other, that’s why.
Well, that’s our fault, though, according to those hard-working, well-paid Gen Xers and Baby Boomers. We should have stayed in school and gotten a degree. Never mind that the cost of college relative to inflation has gone up exponentially since our parents were giving peace signs in the seventies or rocking out to eighties hair bands.
[image error]
In fact, since 1985, college costs have risen almost five times as fast as the overall consumer price index (nearly 500% to 115%).
What does that mean? It means we’re lazy and don’t know how to work hard, doh!
Oh, you did stay in school and get your degree? Got some student loans that you’re now forced to pay back, because skipping out on them isn’t as easy as it was back when our parents graduated? Worked three jobs to pay for school while attending school, because you can no longer get a job, work three months in the summer, and make enough money to pay the next two semesters’ tuition, books, room, and board?
Still working for minimum wage? Wearing a chicken suit and waving a “cash for gold” sign? Handing out smoothie samples at the mall? Asking people if they’d like to sign up for your store’s frequent shopper card, and getting yelled at by people who don’t want the card and don’t care that you’re required to ask to keep your shitty minimum wage job?
Well, that’s your fault because you’re lazy. If there are no jobs available in your field, you shouldn’t have majored in art, English, or Star Trek history. Oh, you didn’t? You majored in a field where there were supposed to be lots of jobs available? Sure there are, for people with twenty years of experience willing to work for what a recent graduate would have been paid ten years ago. Because, you see, in the shitconomy, lots of people with lots of experience are unemployed, which means lots of them become underemployed. Because why would you hire someone with no experience when you can hire someone with ten years of experience for the same price?
But hey, keep rewriting your resume, applying for jobs, calling to follow up to show initiative, and either never hearing back or being told, “We need someone with more experience.” Because it’s SUPER easy to get experience when no one wants to hire you! Better yet, quit your low-paying retail job and move to another city to work a free internship in the summer, because maybe after three months you’ll have enough experience to get a job somewhere…maybe. Meanwhile you can just not eat for three months—you need to lose weight anyway, right? Let’s face it, staring at screens and playing video games and polishing our participation trophies just aren’t calorie-burning activities.
Oh, you can’t even get an internship in the first place because they’re only for students, and you already graduated, and you were up against hundreds of other students for all the internships you tried to get when you were a student? Sucks to be you, and also, you’re lazy.
Besides, even if one of those older people did hire you, it would just be a waste of their time, because, you know, we’re lazy and addicted to our phones. However, people our parents age are temporarily able to overlook this fact when, you know, they can’t figure out how to work their own phone. Suddenly they don’t care that you’re lazy and spend all day on Facebook, they just want to know how to get off that screen or make that app work again, because previous generations were born without the ability to Google anything they need to know how to do.
But, the minute you finish fixing their phone or computer or whatever, they’ll go back to griping about how you spend too much time staring at a screen and not enough time working. Probably they’ll tweet about it just as soon as you show them how to reset their Twitter password for the umpteenth time.
Well, now that they’re occupied for the next five minutes, you can go back to your job search. But don’t spend your first paycheck yet—even if you do get a job, your diploma isn’t helping you that much. College graduates have faced a decline in earnings of 16-19% in the past decade. So as your degree got more expensive, it also got less valuable to you.
What’s that? I was supposed to be giving you advice about how to succeed as a Millennial? Yeah, that’s right. Sorry, I get distracted. You know us Millennials have no attention span because—SQUIRREL—too much screen time. I blame Facebook.
So, my advice:
Either find a cheapo insurance policy you can afford that covers Valium, or put your headphones on and tune out the older generations when they start in on a story about how hard they had it when they were your age, and how you have it so much easier, and also, you’re lazy and have no work ethic.
Buy food at Big Lots or other discount stores. Grocery stores are for our parents’ generation. You know, people who could buy ten times as many groceries as you with a minimum-wage paycheck back in the seventies. This way you can eat for pennies a day—because that’s all you can afford! Check out these boxes of Barilla pasta I got for .50 each the other day, just because they were about to expire:[image error]
Ignore expiration dates, at least on dry packaged goods like, say, pasta. I once ate a box of Luna bars that had expired three years earlier. They tasted exactly the same as fresh ones and cost a lot less. Companies put those expiration dates on things that don’t really expire to screw you out of what little hard-earned money you have.
Try to stay in good shape so you don’t get too worn out dancing around in that chicken costume on the side of the road, after a long day of running a cash register and fake smiling at people who say, “If it didn’t scan, it’s free, right?”
If you can’t afford an insurance policy that covers whatever medication will allow you to fake-smile at assholes all day in your customer service job, remember that beer is cheap and doesn’t require a prescription.
When writing your resume, describe your experience running the aforementioned cash register as, “Handling complex financial transactions with accuracy and aplomb.” At least, the guy from my university’s career center told me to do this. It never helped me land a better job, but maybe it’ll work better for you—especially if you can dye your hair gray and convince the interviewer you’re actually not a Millennial.
Even though your college diploma is worthless, resist the urge to rip it to shred or burn it, because it will come in handy when you’re too broke to buy toilet paper. And trust me, that will happen.
If you get bored or discouraged at your job, your second job, your third job, or while standing in line at the unemployment office, or selling everything you own on eBay, or peddling your own bodily fluids, just remind yourself that you’re broke because you’re a lazy, unmotivated slug!
August 14, 2017
How an All-Celebrity Election Season Transforms The Oscars
Author’s note: Recently singer Kid Rock announced he was running for Congress, and actor/wrestler The Rock said he was going to run for president in 2020. With so many celebrities jumping into politics, I started wondering what an all-celebrity, no-politician election cycle would look like in the not-so-distant future.
The Rock, Kid Rock, Chris Rock, and non-Rock Celebrities Run for Office, No Politicians In Sight
New York, February 20, 2018—Last night’s Oscars ceremony was once again a star-studded spectacle of political posturing and stump speeches, leaving some fans wondering when we can all get back to watching actors and musicians for entertainment.
Actor/wrestler Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson said he was excited to campaign at the event. “I’m here to grip and grin, pal, haven’t you heard? I’m running for prez in 2020.”
[image error]
The Rock’s acceptance speech for “Best Transition From Actor to Presidential Candidate” was cut short by musician Kid Rock, who stormed on stage to interrupt. “Oh yeah? I’m going to let you finish your speech, but first I want to remind everyone I’m running for Congress. I think the people of my state really want an American Bad Ass in office, so I’ll be campaigning all summer long. I’m actually doing pretty well in the polls in Michigan, you know—”
At that point, his interruption was interrupted by comedian Chris Rock. “I’m going to let you finish interrupting his speech, but first I want to announce I’m also running for president in 2020,” he said to Kid Rock.
“Oh yeah, I guess you’re my competition then. What’s your platform?” The Rock asked.
The comedian explained his qualifications. “Well, I figure it would be a nice change for the country, having a president who can tell a joke instead of a president who is a joke. Besides, I’m not just an entertainer—I DO have experience being a Head of State.”
The Rock retorted with highlights from his own resume. “Well, I was in the World Wrestling Federation. Let me tell you something, if a reporter makes fun of me, I won’t have to beat him up in a photoshopped GIF.”
Chris Rock said he would focus on the important issues as president. “Forget about beating up reporters. When I’m president, I’m going to mend all those broken relationships with other countries. Kim-Jong will be laughing so hard, he’ll forget to test another nuke.”
At that point, the sound engineers for the awards show blared the “shut up” music so they could cut to a much-needed commercial break filled with ads for headache and heartburn relievers.
After the break, The Rock returned to present the award for “Most Moving Fake Tears in a Political Ad” to newcomer Charlie Sheen, who used his acceptance speech to talk about his own run for president.
“I’m here to run for president, because I’m all about WINNINNNNG!”
The Rock stepped in to advise him about this campaign promise. “Uh, I don’t know if voters are going to fall for that one again quite so soon, Charlie.”
Sheen moved on to his next promise. “I’m going to be a real hands-on president. No hiding out in the White House for me! I’m going to be standing by the Mexican border, ready to defend America by catching those falling bags of drugs! To protect my fellow Americans, of course.”
At that point, Kid Rock rushed on stage to volunteer to assist Sheen in his presidential mission at the border. “Way to take one for the team, man. You need help? I think Congress should get involved in this effort.”
But the biggest surprise of the night was when actress Betty White received the award for “Lifetime Achievement in Avoiding a Scandal.” White took the opportunity to announce her own run for president.
“I want the voters to know I’m very qualified. I’m known for Golden Girls, not golden showers, it’s time America had a female president, and at my age I’m not going to start deleting emails, because I don’t know how!”
White received a standing ovation for her speech.
July 10, 2017
This is Why the First Amendment is More Important Now Than Ever
I’m going to start by telling you my earliest memory of seeing a politician lie. I don’t remember how old I was, but I was pretty little, maybe three or four. I didn’t know who the president was or what that title meant or what taxes were or why I should care about any of it.
But I do remember one day when I was watching some kids’ shows, and they kept showing the same promo for the nightly news at every commercial break. I was used to seeing the same commercials, but usually they had different stuff at each break to tease the news—or, as my little-kid self thought of it, “that boring old people stuff I don’t want to watch.”
But this day they showed the same thing at every commercial break. It was a very short clip, of an old guy with gray hair in a suit, saying one thing: “Read my lips, no new taxes.”
I got pretty bored seeing that over and over. At one point, my mom wandered into the room and I asked her about it. You know what she said? “Well, that guy is the president now, and when he was running for president he made a promise, and he didn’t keep it. It’s the news networks’ jobs to let people know when that happens. When someone has a big, important job like that, they have to be held accountable.”
I hadn’t thought about that in years, but I’ve been thinking about it lately. We have a First Amendment for precisely that reason—so our leaders can be held accountable, so when they lie, the press can make sure people are aware of it. (Of course, that assumes people trust the press more than “alternative facts” made up in the Fantasyland of their own minds, but you get the idea.)
For the record, I’m not just picking on George Bush, Senior. He’s neither the first nor the last president to break a campaign promise, and in fact, his missteps seem pretty minor compared to some of the shit that’s happened in the last six months. My point is that back in the nineties, news networks made everyone aware when a politician had lied. (Again, not just Bush. I remember hearing about Bill Clinton’s penis and how he lied about a blowjob every night on the news for about two years.)
Personally, I think journalists today need to spend more time blasting every lie every high-ranking government official tells over, and over, and over. If the president, or a congressperson, or whoever, gets caught in a lie, or breaks a campaign promise, that needs to be the promo that runs at every commercial break on the national networks. On the 24/7 cable networks, that should run continuously, until the next time a politician gets caught lying. No, it wouldn’t get boring. At the rate politicians lie, in 24 hours there would be a ton of variety.
But the cable networks aren’t going to do that, because their sponsors think people would rather listen to pundits argue about every little thing than watch actual news. But we can all help. Start today. Share a clip of a politician lying on social media. Or four. Check your facts first, so you’re not out spreading alternative facts—check your sources, make sure they’re legitimate news organizations, maybe find a nice clip of the campaign promise while you’re at it, and share that shit. If the news networks aren’t going to do what they did in the nineties and blast every broken campaign promise like a broken record—in other words, if they’re not going to do their job—then the rest of us are just going to have to step up and do it for them. Remember, the First Amendment covers our free speech, too.
June 15, 2017
20 Things I Already Know About You When You Say, “I Don’t Care About Money”
#1: I know you have enough of it to meet your needs, at least most of the time. Maybe you’re not rich, but you don’t spend a significant portion of every day trying to figure out how you can scrimp enough pennies—literally, pennies dug from the couch cushions and the seat of your car sometimes—together to pay your bills this month.
[image error]20 Things I Already Know About You When You Say, “I Don’t Care About Money”
#2: I know that you haven’t spent your adult life dealing with dental pain and problems you can’t afford to fix because braces were too expensive when you were a teenager.
#3: I know when you were a kid, your parents never told you to discourage your friends from buying you expensive birthday gifts because they couldn’t reciprocate.
#4: I know you don’t dread logging into Facebook every day and seeing pictures of your friends’ vacations, and remembering, every day, that you’ve never been able to afford a vacation in your entire adult life, and probably never will.
#5: Speaking of travel, whatever the hell that is, I know you’ve never had to no-show the wedding of one of the few relatives you actually like because you couldn’t afford the trip.
#6: I know you have never been to the brink of financial ruin because of a car repair.
#7: I know you have never figured out the true meaning, of “I can’t afford it,” which is, “I don’t deserve it.” It doesn’t matter that people always use the first phrase and never the last. The thing is, society tells us from the time we’re in preschool that if we just work really hard, we’ll be successful. So somewhere in that innocuous explanation of the numbers to the left of the period in your bank account being insufficient is the implication that you don’t deserve it—a car that runs, socks that don’t have holes in them, brand name anything. Deep down, we all know that “can’t afford it” translates to “don’t deserve it.”
#8 I know you have never worked two jobs and/or taken out loans to pay for a college degree that was supposed to be a ticket out of poverty, but was really nothing more than a one-way ticket to an even smaller number in your bank account.
#9 I know the thought of spending money—any amount of money, $5, $10, $100—doesn’t terrify you.
#10 I know looking at a price tag for something you want or need isn’t like being stabbed in the heart for you.
#11 I know you don’t feel like an imposter every time you go anywhere meant for people with more money than you, which is pretty much everywhere.
#12 I know you have never shaved your legs with the same disposable razor for a year or more to avoid spending $2.99 on a new package of twelve disposable razors.
#13 I know you have never had to live with someone/multiple someones who make you feel badly about yourself/treat you like shit because you can’t afford to move out.
#14 I know you have never gone to the bank and wondered if they now know you on sight as that stupid blonde woman who’s always overdrawn because she can’t get her damn shit together.
#15 I know you have never heard someone say, “I don’t care about money” and wanted to throat punch them, because how the hell can you NOT CARE about something that has the power to wreck your whole life? Unless, of course, it doesn’t have that power over you, because you have enough money to deal with most of life’s everyday problems.
#16 I know you have never had to turn down an internship that might have helped your future career prospects immensely because you simply couldn’t afford to quit both your jobs, move to another city, and pay for things like rent, gas, and groceries while working for free. (But don’t worry, some trust fund brat probably snapped up that opportunity.)
#17 I know when you were a kid, your parents didn’t tell you that you couldn’t have friends over because they didn’t want anyone to see how badly the house was falling apart, with the peeling paint and holes where doorknobs were supposed to be.
#18 I know you have never felt incredibly guilty for spending $15 on new shoes even though the old ones were literally falling apart at the seams.
#19 I know you have never wanted to throw something at the TV when that “go to college” ad comes on, and you see the guy who gets to buy the laptop and the guy working in the store, and the ad wants you to believe the difference between them is that the guy working in the store didn’t go to college, but you worked two shitty jobs so you could get that degree and are still working in a shitty store for shitty pay.
#20 I know you have no idea that some people simply do not have the option to not care about money, you do not appreciate the incredible privilege “not caring about money” represents, and you probably think I’m a whiner who needs to just shut up and work harder.
W. T. Fallon is the author of Fail to the Chief, a political satire in which the presidential election is carried out via reality show, which is almost as bizarre and far-fetched as our current reality.
Things I Already Know About You When You Say, “I Don’t Care About Money”
#1: I know you have enough of it to meet your needs, at least most of the time. Maybe you’re not rich, but you don’t spend a significant portion of every day trying to figure out how you can scrimp enough pennies—literally, pennies dug from the couch cushions and the seat of your car sometimes—together to pay your bills this month.
[image error]
#2: I know that you haven’t spent your adult life dealing with dental pain and problems you can’t afford to fix because braces were too expensive when you were a teenager.
#3: I know when you were a kid, your parents never told you to discourage your friends from buying you expensive birthday gifts because they couldn’t reciprocate.
#4: I know you don’t dread logging into Facebook every day and seeing pictures of your friends’ vacations, and remembering, every day, that you’ve never been able to afford a vacation in your entire adult life, and probably never will.
#5: Speaking of travel, whatever the hell that is, I know you’ve never had to no-show the wedding of one of the few relatives you actually like because you couldn’t afford the trip.
#6: I know you have never been to the brink of financial ruin because of a car repair.
#7: I know you have never figured out the true meaning, of “I can’t afford it,” which is, “I don’t deserve it.” It doesn’t matter that people always use the first phrase and never the last. The thing is, society tells us from the time we’re in preschool that if we just work really hard, we’ll be successful. So somewhere in that innocuous explanation of the numbers to the left of the period in your bank account being insufficient is the implication that you don’t deserve it—a car that runs, socks that don’t have holes in them, brand name anything. Deep down, we all know that “can’t afford it” translates to “don’t deserve it.”
#8 I know you have never worked two jobs and/or taken out loans to pay for a college degree that was supposed to be a ticket out of poverty, but was really nothing more than a one-way ticket to an even smaller number in your bank account.
#9 I know the thought of spending money—any amount of money, $5, $10, $100—doesn’t terrify you.
#10 I know looking at a price tag for something you want isn’t like being stabbed in the heart for you.
#11 I know you don’t feel like an imposter every time you go anywhere meant for people with more money than you, which is pretty much everywhere.
#12 I know you have never shaved your legs with the same disposable razor for a year or more to avoid spending $2.99 on a new package of twelve disposable razors.
#13 I know you have never had to live with someone/multiple someones who make you feel badly about yourself/treat you like shit because you can’t afford to move out.
#14 I know you have never gone to the bank and wondered if they now know you on sight as that stupid blonde girl who’s always overdrawn because she can’t get her damn shit together.
#15 I know you have never heard someone say, “I don’t care about money” and wanted to throat punch them, because how the hell can you NOT CARE about something that has the power to wreck your whole life? Unless, of course, it doesn’t have that power over you, because you have enough money to deal with most of life’s everyday problems.
#16 I know you have never had to turn down an internship that might have helped your future career prospects immensely because you simply couldn’t afford to quit both your jobs, move to another city, and pay for things like rent, gas, and groceries while working for free. (But don’t worry, some trust fund brat probably snapped up that opportunity.)
#17 I know when you were a kid, your parents didn’t tell you that you couldn’t have friends over because they didn’t want anyone to see how badly the house was falling apart, with the peeling paint and holes where doorknobs were supposed to be.
#18 I know you have never felt incredibly guilty for spending $15 on new shoes even though the old ones were literally falling apart at the seams.
#19 I know you have never wanted to throw something at the TV when that “go to college” ad comes on, and you see the guy who gets to buy the laptop and the guy working in the store, and the ad wants you to believe the difference between them is that the guy working in the store didn’t go to college, but you worked two shitty jobs so you could get that degree and are still working in a shitty store for shitty pay.
#20 I know you have no idea that some people simply do not have the option to not care about money, you do not appreciate the incredible privilege “not caring about money” represents, and you probably think I’m a whiner who needs to just shut up and work harder.
May 22, 2017
How Much of a Cheapskate Are You?
I’ll be honest, I’m a tightwad. Mostly this is a necessity due to my always being broke. It may also be partly genetic. When I was a kid, I remember my dad getting into a fight with the owner of the laundromat over a quarter. Yes, a quarter. The laundromat guy came out and told him the timer was broken on the machine, and after a half-hour he needed to pay another quarter. My dad got mad, called him a crook, and we ended up leaving with all our wet laundry soaking through the laundry basket into the backseat of the car, which was gross. (Now, personally I’m not big on trusting people where money is concerned either, but I also think if you wanted to shake someone down you’d be after more than .25. Who the fuck tries to screw someone out of a quarter? Even in the nineties you couldn’t buy much with a quarter.)
Anyway, my point is I’m a cheapskate. So I got to wondering how much other people care about pinching pennies this weekend at Sam’s Club. (I’m too cheap to spend fifty bucks on a membership, but my parents have one and I use their card.) I don’t shop there often because you can buy in bulk, so I don’t need to. I usually buy the big container of Skippy Natural peanut butter (40 ounces), which they sell in a convenient two-pack for about nine bucks. Or they used to. It was a cheaper price than Wallyworld and other discount stores, and the two pack lasted me more than six months.
But I’m starting to get low on my peanut butter so I go to Sam’s, and I see the Skippy Natural has been replaced by Member’s Mark Natural for about the same price. I don’t like this, but the ingredients list is the same so I go ahead and try it. Then I get a two-pack of strawberry jam and my big box of Nature Valley granola bars. I also find a 12-pack of Malibu Vegan Gardenburgers for $10.98, which is an awesome price, and onions are far enough down on the ingredients list that I decide it isn’t going to taste all oniony and gross like how I remember the original Gardenburger. At that point I seriously regret not taking a cart, so I finally head to the front to check out.
So there’s a line at all the checkouts. Like, all of them. Most of them ten-deep. Then I see all these empty self-check lanes and I go over to see if they’re out of order. I mean, I figure they’re out of order because why the fuck would you be standing in line for an hour to avoid checking yourself out? But they’re not out of order, all those idiots are just waiting in line for nothing. I watch them, figuring someone’s going to notice how smart I am and there’s going to be a stampede to get to the other self-check machines before they’re all full, but no—no one moves from the line.
Okay, maybe a few of them have to pay cash, but ALL of them? And some of these people probably have hundreds of dollars worth of stuff in their carts. Who carries that much cash? (I typically have zero cash in my wallet.)
[image error]
I don’t mind checking myself out, although as a cheapskate, it does bother me that I don’t get a discount for doing so. After all, Sam’s (or Walmart, or Target, or any other store with self-check) is saving money on overhead when I check myself out. And with Walmart/Sam’s Club, they’re always bragging about how they’re saving money to save YOU money—for example, Sam’s doesn’t have plastic bags, although there’s a pile of empty boxes up front you can pick through. Supposedly, they’re passing on the saving to customers, right?
So why can’t they pass on the savings of employing fewer cashiers to customers who use the self-check? Why isn’t there an instant discount of .1% or something every time you use the self-check? This seems unfair. I’m perfectly happy to check myself out, but I feel like the saving should be passed on to me.
That being said, I am not quite enough of a cheapskate to wait in line for an hour at Sam’s just to stick it to them for not giving me a discount. So I reluctantly use the self-check at stores that have it, even though I feel that I’m paying more than I would at the regular checkout for the same items, because the self-check line is always so much shorter.
I feel like I’m not being a good cheapskate here, even though I use coupon apps and always make sure stuff rings up right and never buy an item I know is cheaper elsewhere if the store won’t price match. But, sometimes I just don’t have an hour to wait in line.
So, why don’t stores offer discounts to customers who check out their own items? Especially club stores where everyone already has a trackable member card? Maybe they could give you a discount after you spend so much money at the self-check, or every tenth purchase or something. It seems to me that since no one does this, if ONE store did it, that would be a really good way to build customer loyalty and keep people coming back to that store, especially since people already want to use the self-check because it’s more convenient.
How much of a cheapskate are you? Would you wait in line for a long time if it meant sticking it to a company that wasn’t passing savings on to you?
