10 things not worth the money

Ever paid for something and then after the fact discovered it wasn’t worth the money? Of course you have. It’s time we start identifying those things. Credit for this idea goes to my friend Adrian from Boise, who on a recent Friday night texted me the following: I think you should do a blog post about margaritas not being fucking worth it and other things that are not worth the money. Brilliant! So here's a list of 10 things that are not fucking worth the money.

10.       Margaritas

This is for you, buddy. Based on the time of the evening and the tone of your text, my best guess is that you had just paid $14 for a margarita at some trendy Boise bar (yes, coastal culture snobs, that shit is out there) and found the result not at all satisfying. I don’t blame you. Even at $7, a margarita is not much of a cocktail. As a drink it tries to do too much. Tequila. A large dose of some sort of sugary/fruity mix that is often lemon based. Blended. Goblet rimmed with salt. Are you sweet? Sour? Savory? If you have to try that hard to mask the taste of tequila, perhaps you should be looking at the children’s menu. But that’s sort of the point, isn’t it? A margarita is like the big sister to the wine cooler. Something mostly sweet for the kids. In the right circumstances, margaritas aren't all bad. Double (or triple) up on the tequila, serve it on the rocks in a medium-sized tumbler with a salted rim, add a splash of mix, and I can choke it down. Even better, pour me the tequila in shot glasses, stand back, and prepare to be entertained.

9.         That one drink too many

Let's stick with booze for a moment. Before making my list I decided it would include ten things and then I got hung up on nine and didn't want to change the title of this post. So I crowd-sourced on the facebook and promised fame in the form of a mention in my blog to anyone who could come up with an item for my list. A lot of good suggestions, but I ultimately landed on the cost of that one drink too many. Totally not worth it. It's like getting a shot of novacane at the dentist and then after everything goes numb and you're drooling you pay for a second shot. Overkill. My brother, Clay, an elementary schoolteacher in the Alaska bush (who blogs about that experiences here ) proposed that "the 18th or 19th shot of tequila" was not the worth cost, while my friend Sue who works at the Oregonian in Portland (follow her on twitter @SueJepsen) proposed that "martini No. 4" was not worth the cost. Based on my personal knowledge, I think Clay is over-reporting his one drink too many and Sue is under-reporting her one drink too many. 

8.         Men’s replacement razors

We’ve all seen them. Young men with big, weird beards. “Beirdos” is the technical term for this subset of the population. But do you know why so many of these beirdos are populating mainstream culture these days? Because even fully employed middle-aged men in America can no longer afford replacement blades for their razors. Why? Because the replacement razor blade industry is a racket. Gillette (a subsidiary of multinational conglomerate Procter and Gamble) appears to be the only company that sells replacement razor blades at the retail level and Gillette doesn’t seem to mind if only the elite can afford its product. At more than three dollars per replacement blade, I avoided replacing mine until I could no longer endure the pain of a dull edge roughly pulling hair follicles from my face and neck. I flirted with the idea of becoming a beirdo, but basically my wife, Carissa, shut that down. So I looked for alternatives. Now I order replacement blades in bulk straight from a factory in South Korea called Dorco. The cost is a fraction Gillette’s predatory pricing practices with zero difference in quality. The Internet can guide you to other options. Spread the word to the beirdos in your life.

 7.         Movie popcorn

I can list on the fingers of one hand the things I love more than the buttered popcorn I fix at home pursuant to a time-perfected process involving a hot skillet, a bit of EVOO with the right ratio of unpopped kernels, real butter, and salt. These are those things: my wife. My two kids. Coffee. That’s about it – three things, four depending on whether the kids are counted together or separately. But paying $8 for a village-sized tub of “buttered popcorn” at the movies is not worth the money. I’m not saying I don’t buy and eat the entire bucket. Hell yes I do. I am a weak, weak man and that shit smells so good. But almost immediately I am filled with remorse and self-loathing because I just ate an entire bucket of heavily salted Styrofoam kernels slathered with a rancid-tasting butter-like substance. And the salt has caused my lips to swell and I’m puckered up like a this-is-your-lips-on-Botox public service announcement. And I’m mad thirsty to the point I chug my entire $5.50 liter of bottled water. So not worth it.

6.         Children’s birthday parties

We have our own Cold War-style arms race going on out here in the suburbs. Those in the know realize I’m taking about children’s birthday parties. Our weekends are planned around these events. E-vites flood our inbox. We spend the Gross Domestic Product of Liechtenstein on gifts for children I don’t even know. Carissa buys gifts in bulk and stores them in a closet in the basement so we never have to scramble on the way to a party. Craziest of all, there appears to be a tradition that when it’s your kid’s party, every kid you invite goes home with a gift bag that you provide to them. But here’s the dirty little secret that we all know. Kids don’t care if you take them to the Smithsonian Natural History Museum for a private presentation on primates hosted by Jane Goodall dressed as a clown or if you give them cardboard wrapping paper tubes and send them to the backyard to hit each other over the head.  Kids have EXACTLY THE SAME AMOUNT OF FUN. Wait. Correction. Kids have MORE FUN whacking each other senseless with cardboard tubes. And then we realize we have all become mindless cogs in the wheels of the birthday industrial complex. Not worth the cost.

5.         Weddings

Why can’t two people in love just go to Vegas and beat each other with cardboard wrapping paper tubes in front on an Elvis impersonator, say “I Do,” and then spend big on a mind-altering honeymoon? Why (asks the father of two daughters) go through the extreme expense and stress that is apparently required to carry out a wedding? Does it make a marriage better? Is it worth it to have your future in-laws judge you for chugging beer in a rented tuxedo in the church parking lot with your shiftless groomsmen while waiting for the ceremony to begin? Does it make you a bad person to tell your soon-to-be wife that her wedding dress cost more than your twelve-year-old Chevy pickup? Bottom line: weddings are not worth the cost, folks. You can show your love and commitment in less expensive and equally meaningful ways. Anyway, if you need me, I’ll be the husband sleeping on the couch for the next twenty years.

4.         Christmas trees

Yes, I’m taking on another sacred symbol here. But I have fresh scars on this one. I don’t even know how much we just paid for a six-foot evergreen from a Pennsylvania tree farm that we bought from local volunteer fire-fighters selling trees as a fundraiser. I don’t know because my wife won’t tell me how much it cost. So obviously the cost of a live Christmas tree is way outside my comfort zone. It’s the same reason I never ask Carissa how much her new boots cost and why I never tell her how much I spend on whiskey. Plus what’s so special about a Christmas tree? If you are celebrating the birth of Jesus, pretty sure you don’t need a tree. If you’re celebrating a secular Christmas as a holiday where families come together and exchange gifts, you still don’t need a tree. Just stack gifts in the corner and proceed as normal. Not worth the cost.

3.         Fancy treadmills

Here’s all you need to know: running on a treadmill is like texting while wearing gloves. I’ve run a thousand miles or so on a treadmill in my basement over the years, primarily when we had kids that could not be left alone and Carissa was traveling or out training for a triathlon or something. My old treadmill was simple: it provided elapsed time, distance, speed in miles per hour, and pace in minutes per mile. It also let me adjust the incline in case I wanted to pretend I was running up a hill. When we moved from Boise to D.C., I sold my treadmill and bought a new one after finding a house. I decided to splurge and paid extra for some fancy gadgets. Internet connectivity, built-in video monitors for watching television and movies. My new toy allowed me to program a run along a scenic ocean-side trail in Hawaii or through a Redwood forests in California, with the treadmill automatically adjusting for elevation and the video monitor providing a first-person point-of-view. I could run through ancient Mayan ruins from the comfort and convenience of my basement in Bethesda. But when I tried it out, it was not at all like running through ancient Mayan ruins from the comfort and convenience of my basement in Bethesda. It was the like running in my basement and watching the technological equivalent of a 1970s era Atari 2600 model video game. While wearing gloves. Not worth the cost. 

2.         Hardcover books

This one hurts because I love the idea of hardcover books. I do not love paying the price of hardcover books when I can pay for the exact same words in the exact same order in digital form for a fraction of the price. Or I can wait a few months and buy the paperback version. I know there are book nerds out there right now talking about the aesthetic of holding a hardcover book, smelling its essence, seeing it on your bookshelf yadda, yadda, yadda, blah, blah, blah. Whatever. The author doesn’t get extra money for selling a hardcover version of her book. It all goes to a middleman. So I am able to put a price on the aesthetic of a hardcover version of a book and that price is somewhere between the price of the paperback and electronic versions of that book. And digital books are even better when comes time to move. Hardcover books are not worth the cost.

1.         Mac and cheese for kids at restaurants

Kids can be the fucking worst, right parents? And they are never worse than when they pitch a fit in a public place. My kids love ordering macaroni and cheese when we eat out. It drives me crazy because I am paying five or six bucks for a bowl of mac and cheese that the restaurant purchased from Kraft for $0.79. Why didn’t we just stay home? Even worse is how over-priced restaurant-prepared Kraft mac and cheese has become the baseline from which my kids compare all mac and cheeses in the world. Which sets the stage for that precious moment when some restaurant has the audacity to try to create something good and true and pure on the kids’ menu and serves a bowl of delicious made-from-scratch macaroni and cheese and your kids scream and cry and refuse to eat this strange exotic dish. Ugh. On so many levels, not worth the cost.

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So there's my rant about things that cost too much. It's so cleansing. But I realize that too much negativity can harm the soul. Therefore, coming soon will be my list of 10 things that are totally worth the cost. I'm not saying tequila will be on that list, but I'm not denying it either.