Sunday, July 18, 2010

The 5 Corners of Wallet Rapeage


Times are tough in America. People are unemployed. Nobody has a dollar to their name. I'm not saying we're going through your Grandpa's real Great Depression, but hey by my generation's standard shit is rough. You would think that America's businesses would react to this and help you save a couple bucks here and there. NO. Instead America has come up more ways to rape your wallet than ever before. I give you now the 5 main corners of wallet rapeage in America that piss me off.


1. Movie Theatres: Going to the movies these days is fucking ridiculous. My dad was just telling me about how movies were $2/ticket in his day. Keep in mind that back then movies were shown at drive-in theaters, so a $4 invesment in a movie date meant catching a great flick while receiving some backseat pleasure during the boring scenes. AWESOME. Today it is fucking 10 dollars for one movie ticket. Even worse movie food is insanely priced, even though theater movie items are lower quality than fast food. "Nachos" = a small cup of cheese wiz and 12 chips. $7. What the hell? Also they strategically price things so you feel pressured to spend the most money. Oh a small popcorn is $7.50...but the jumbo fat kid tub is $8. Well fuck, what's the point of saving 50 cents to get a minimal amount of popcorn? Instead I might as well dish out the extra coin to now have a quantity of popcorn no human outside of Michael Moore could consume. Also movie theater register guys try to sell you extra shit you don't want these days. You're not a commission salesman, why the fuck are you trying to force me to buy twizzlers when I've already spent $30 this evening??

2. Itunes: I used to download music, movies, and other items that aren't porn for free in college. This was great. Then as you get older you realize doing illegal things is bad, and more importantly I can't afford a new computer after these sites contaminate my laptop with a thousand viruses. So I have to use ITunes now. Itunes started out being reasonable at aboout $1 a song. Then they realized this was TOO reasonable and commenced raping wallets. For any modern band that releases an album Itunes charges $1.25 a song. Even worse, modern bands suck and if you want to download the one decent song that song is invevitably "Album Only." Well shit I am not gonna pay $13 for the entire shitty Jay-Z album. If there is an old band you like all their songs are a buck, EXCEPT for the ones everyone likes. Random CCR b-side: $1. "Fortunate Son": $1.25. Fuck you ITunes.

3. Minimum Delivery Charges: It's Saturday morning, I'm hungover and there is no food in the house. I NEEED some greasy Kung Pao chicken. So I call Magic Wok. They have a TWELVE dollar pre-tax delivery charge. Goddamnit. How am I supposed to get to this magic number?? I want a meal, and maybe one appetizer, both of which are $5. I don't want another random egg drop soup with it. Yet I HAVE to order it to hit the minimum. Then they charge me tax. AND I have to tip. So I end up paying $15 when I only wanted $5 of greasy food. Which is not proportional to the amount of work you put into making my meal. You fried a stray cat, threw it in one of your 3 giant pots of chinese sauce and threw some peanuts on top. That is NOT worth $15.

4. Cash Only establishments: I never have cash on me, because if I have cash it gets spent. It's the 21st century, and you'd think everyone would take VISA but NOOO there are still "cash only" establishments. This is total bullshit. None of these places is so short on profits that they can't afford credit card machines. They just do it to add to the "old-fashioned mom and pops" aura of their establishment. With bars this is especially annoying because you get ripped off with tipping every time. See if you don't tip every time you will never get a drink in less than 20 minutes. So now every $4 beer is a $5 beer (yeah cash only places are never cheap). All the "cash only" restaurants are generally lunch places which sucks because during your 1 hour for lunch you don't have time to waste going to your personal bank ATM before hitting up a bite to eat. Don't worry though, even though these Nazi establishments can't afford credit card machines...they CAN afford ATMs. Speaking of which...

5. ATMS: The Granddaddy of all wallet rapeage. If you want to go to an ATM and take money out of your account..without being charged money..to take out money, you have to actually go to your personal bank which is probably inconveniently located far from any place you want to spend your money. So if you go to a bar and randomly find out that it's a $5 cover because there is a shitty 80's cover band playing, you have to go to the random ATM next door and get charged $2.50 by the ATM and your bank ($5 total) to take out a minimum of $20 you didn't even need to withdraw. This is complete bullshit. The worst are "generic" bar ATMs. What the hell is with these things?? Generic bar ATMs charge an even more insane fee to withdraw money. I have to spend $27 so I can have $20 to spend...and I only needed 5 bucks. Left with a random $15 in cash my friends and I are now left with no choice but to go to the strip club at 1am.


Ok fine...strip clubs are the REAL king of wallet rapeage...but we have nobody to blame but ourselves for that...

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