Trust Me, This Is A Shortcut

First of all, I apologize -

I missed posting on Sunday night. I spent the entire day at Six Flags, and that much sun on my pale Irish skin resulted in prostration and regurgitation the likes of which I had never before experienced. Sun poisoning is my webMD diagnosis, since I decided to hold out on going to the ER.

Until the next night…

Monday night ended up being for Ally. When the entire left side of her body went numb, it was a coin toss between the emergency room and signing her up for a cage fight. I couldn’t find any cage fights on Craig’s List….

During the day I planned on posting both of those nights; I wasn’t going to take that chance again. So Friday morning here we are. -

Insurance companies make money trading risk. In exchange for financial protection against the risk of a catastrophic loss - like needing brain surgery, or crashing a car, or having your house catch on fire – most individuals will gladly trade a guaranteed loss much smaller: insurance premiums. That is the deal we make with insurance companies every time we sign up with Progressive, or Geico, or State Farm.

But we manage risk on a daily basis, sometimes the tradeoff is hugely advantageous, that is, we give little, but receive a lot : reaching over and clicking your seatbelt, in exchange for survival in a collision. Locking your doors, in exchange for a deterrent to most criminals from breaking and entering.

Some are not.

Lockers just outside of Six Flags, that are about 1 cubic foot in size, cost $10. Not for the day, but rather $10 per use, which translates into you paying $20, if halfway through the day, you might need to access your things, and place them back into the locker for safety. TWENTY DOLLARS! I decided that this guaranteed loss was too great, and that the uncertain possibility of losing my backpack was worth the risk. I thought it through, and ultimately, my faith in the goodness of my fellow man led me astray. The backpack got jacked. Ostensibly, I should have paid for the locker, and done it the way many of the park attendees did it. If I had, I would still have my backpack after all. The fact that my backpack could not have fit in the locker aside, I’m sticking to my guns, that is, that I should not have paid for the locker. I decided to trade the guarantee of being stolen from (Six Flags), in exchange for the risk of being stolen from (hoodlums). The toast landed butter side down this time, maybe next time I’ll wise up and just bring my mom. Portable locker.

Truth be told, I’ve actually changed my mind, mid-entry. By the title, I was planning on going in an entirely different direction with this. I was about to make fun of myself for trying to cheat the system. Trying to use a shortcut, and get away with not paying for the $10. But that was assuming something as nebulous as “the system” was good, righteous, and a result of democracy. Then I realized I was being extorted, that Six Flags had a monopoly on storage lockers, and they could charge whatever they wanted. There is no competition driving prices down, there is just me being forced to bend over.

SO

To bring it back around, instead of espousing the evils of the shortcut, and the need to do things right the first time, the new thesis is “I’m not above starting a blog to discuss serious world issues, and then hijacking an entry to broadcast personal issues.”