47 Cents Til Thursday

A couple of years ago, I found myself in the position of having all my bills paid up, a full tank of gas, and about $100 to last me until the next payday, which would be Thursday, six days away. Now this was not such a bad thing. I needed money for absolutely nothing between Friday and Thursday except to eat out on. Then I did what any of us would do in this position - I spent just about every dime of it in one night of beer filled fun. Some friends of mine came up with the idea of driving out to an Octoberfest in a town an hour or so away. At the time I was fully aware that there was no way I was going to be able to attend this function, eat dinner, drink, and still have any money left over. However, I did it anyway, and when I got home early Saturday morning, I emptied my pockets to find that I had exactly 47 cents to last me until Thursday. Why would any rational person do such a thing?

The answer is simple, albeit cliched. Money isn't everything. Why do we drag our sorry asses out of bed every morning to go to work? Is it because we love our jobs so much? No, we do it to make money, and you simply can't survive as a human being if you only work to make money to pay your bills and never spend a dime on anything that you don't need. We truly do deserve to do something totally irrational that we can't afford every so often. Mine was this beer festival. I drove out, had an overpriced dinner with some friends, and went to the event. If you've never been to one of these, you have no idea what you are missing. There were more imported beers than we had time to try, an authentic German polka band, and as a result, a lot of really drunk people dancing badly to really shitty music. There are some experiences that you just can't put a price tag on.

Enjoy while you have it people. An old college buddy of mine used to say "You'd better get it while the getting is good, cause you just never know when the getting won't be so good anymore" As I recall, he was referring to chasing ass, but I think the idea is still very relevant here. Was I really out anything by having spent the money I did in the way that I did? I think not. So I didn’t have McDonalds for lunch for the next couple of days. That's probably better in the long run anyway. I had a great time, I'd do it again, and as I recall, I made it just fine on my 9 cents a day.