Greed
Whenever I have surgery and I’m put under, the next few days are a mess.
Since I was diagnosed a long time ago with sleep apnea, the anesthesiologist has to put a tube down my throat while I’m out to make sure I keep breathing. Afterwards it hurts to swallow. I can’t sleep. My digestion is screwed up. I want peanut butter at three in the morning. I wake up a half-dozen time each night. I don’t think clearly.
So it’s three in the morning, I’m resisting the peanut butter and pita but giving in to buying the new John Sanford novel. I’m bored. I know my bookshelves by heart. I’ve read everything Sanford has done in the last two decades. Like an addict waiting for his next fix, I recognize my purchase will fill a need, but I’ll be disappointed anyway. Sanford is beginning to repeat himself. The start of any Lucas Davenport adventure is fun, but after page 50 or so of the last six books in his Prey series (there are 29 now, I think) the prose and plot and dialogue have all become mechanical. That’s disappointment number one.
Disappointment number two verges on anger. Sanford is a best-selling author who by this time probably owns the greater part of the state of Minnesota where he lives. He’s a multi-gazillionaire. He could give his readers a break and offer his latest eBook cheap but he doesn’t. It’s $14.95 of pure, unadulterated profit. The online books have no production cost, no paper, no distribution, no shelf space at Barnes & Noble. It is pure greed.
Greed is my latest bête noire.
I see it absolutely everywhere, unashamed, indeed almost proud. We have evolved into a society of petty money-grubbing and it honestly sickens me.
I am spending more monthly on medical copays than I am on food, gasoline, and entertainment put together. Some of the copays are stupidly small--$5.00. Others are not and seem to have no bearing on reality. Provider greed.
I fly to Europe. I reserve a seat. I pay. But wait! I really don’t have a seat! I have to pay extra for an actual crappy chair. I have to pay extra for baggage. I have to pay extra for leg room. Airline greed.
At my morning coffee shop, there are five cash registers. Rarely is more than one manned (or womanned, actually). Only when a line of customers are waiting to be helped does the store manager assign a second cashier. I asked her about this recently, and she said the practice was dictated by the franchise owners who want to develop a delivery service without hiring more staff. Restaurant greed.
If I order something online, I notice more and more that shipping costs are not mentioned until it’s time to check out. These shipping and handling (what does that mean, anyway, handling?) are normally four to five times the actual price of a delivery. Sales greed. I don’t buy and for the next several days will get increasingly frantic emails from the seller telling me I have not finished my transaction.
We now pay to put air in the tires of our cars at the gas station. It used to be free. Garage greed.
The income and salaries of the rank and file have not increased greatly in the past few decades, while the cost of living has soared. Does that have something to do with this surge in financial gluttony or has it always been there, and am I just now noticing?
Since I was diagnosed a long time ago with sleep apnea, the anesthesiologist has to put a tube down my throat while I’m out to make sure I keep breathing. Afterwards it hurts to swallow. I can’t sleep. My digestion is screwed up. I want peanut butter at three in the morning. I wake up a half-dozen time each night. I don’t think clearly.
So it’s three in the morning, I’m resisting the peanut butter and pita but giving in to buying the new John Sanford novel. I’m bored. I know my bookshelves by heart. I’ve read everything Sanford has done in the last two decades. Like an addict waiting for his next fix, I recognize my purchase will fill a need, but I’ll be disappointed anyway. Sanford is beginning to repeat himself. The start of any Lucas Davenport adventure is fun, but after page 50 or so of the last six books in his Prey series (there are 29 now, I think) the prose and plot and dialogue have all become mechanical. That’s disappointment number one.
Disappointment number two verges on anger. Sanford is a best-selling author who by this time probably owns the greater part of the state of Minnesota where he lives. He’s a multi-gazillionaire. He could give his readers a break and offer his latest eBook cheap but he doesn’t. It’s $14.95 of pure, unadulterated profit. The online books have no production cost, no paper, no distribution, no shelf space at Barnes & Noble. It is pure greed.
Greed is my latest bête noire.
I see it absolutely everywhere, unashamed, indeed almost proud. We have evolved into a society of petty money-grubbing and it honestly sickens me.
I am spending more monthly on medical copays than I am on food, gasoline, and entertainment put together. Some of the copays are stupidly small--$5.00. Others are not and seem to have no bearing on reality. Provider greed.
I fly to Europe. I reserve a seat. I pay. But wait! I really don’t have a seat! I have to pay extra for an actual crappy chair. I have to pay extra for baggage. I have to pay extra for leg room. Airline greed.
At my morning coffee shop, there are five cash registers. Rarely is more than one manned (or womanned, actually). Only when a line of customers are waiting to be helped does the store manager assign a second cashier. I asked her about this recently, and she said the practice was dictated by the franchise owners who want to develop a delivery service without hiring more staff. Restaurant greed.
If I order something online, I notice more and more that shipping costs are not mentioned until it’s time to check out. These shipping and handling (what does that mean, anyway, handling?) are normally four to five times the actual price of a delivery. Sales greed. I don’t buy and for the next several days will get increasingly frantic emails from the seller telling me I have not finished my transaction.
We now pay to put air in the tires of our cars at the gas station. It used to be free. Garage greed.
The income and salaries of the rank and file have not increased greatly in the past few decades, while the cost of living has soared. Does that have something to do with this surge in financial gluttony or has it always been there, and am I just now noticing?
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