I knew I shouldn’t have blinked, but I did, and now it is fall, and I am befuddled at how summer streaked by like a proton in a large, functional particle collider. Before I blinked, we had finally settled into a pleasant weather pattern, everyone was excited about Michael Phelps, and Galveston was still standing. On the other side of the blink, the trees are bursting with hot, bright colors, hundreds of geese are congregating on Lake Champlain, and the economy has all but collapsed. The weather and the world as I know it have changed so fast it seems unreal, and maybe it is. Perhaps, in the middle of my blink, I was hit in the head by a brick, and no one has the heart to tell me that the nomination of Sarah Palin is one of the many delusions I regularly experience, as are the geese and the multi-colored trees.
A stark contrast to the flash of summer is the long procession of fall at the bike shop. And contrary to the changing world around us, the routine of the bike shop remains perfectly consistent. Each year, like clockwork, bike season ticks along steadily through August, and then slowly winds down until it stops, at about 3:20 p.m. on a Wednesday in October. Ski season gets things rolling again, but not until December, and during the interim, the only thing rolling at the shop is tumbleweed.
To stir up some business in these dark times, while simultaneously clearing out summer inventory, we have our Crazy Annual End of Summer Blowout Super Sale. Everything “summer” is on sale, already discounted items are even further discounted, and the satisfaction for customers who have waited all summer long to save a few bucks on a bike is so great, it can’t even be quashed by the fact that the riding season is totally over.
I don’t possess the ability to hold off buying items that I desperately want solely for the sake of saving a little bit of money. When I decide that I want a certain something, I don’t want to wait for it. I want it at once. In fact, I just decided, at this very moment, that I would like a cup of coffee, and as proof of how hooked I am on instant gratification, I’m not even going to bother searching through my wallet for my fully punched coffee card so that I can redeem it for a free cup. It’ll take too long. Besides, a cup of coffee is only $1.59. What’s $1.59?
Well, $1.59 is $1.59 of course, and the fact that I don’t appreciate the value of $1.59 could be the reason why I don’t have much more than $1.59 to my name. The other reason could be that my bills make up an enormous percentage of my measly income. Nonetheless, my compulsive spending habits continue to thrive. For example, a few months ago I decided that it was time for a new amplifier, so I went down to the amplifier store and bought one that same day. A sale on amplifiers may have been just around the corner, but that wouldn’t have mattered. I wanted to rock out at once. And I did.
A recent interaction with a very frugal customer should have taught me a little about prudence. It went like this:
“Are these snowshoes going on sale anytime soon?”
“Actually, they are on sale, they are all 20% off.”
“Well, yeah, I see that, but I mean, you know, are they going to be more on sale?”
“Well, they’re never going to be free, if that’s what you’re getting at, but I suppose when the snow is gone for good, we’ll knock another 10% off all the remaining inventory, but as I said, the snow will be gone, so you won’t be able to actually go snowshoeing with your new snowshoes.”
“An extra 10%, eh? I’ll see you then.”
The extra 10% off boiled down to about $15, yet he was prepared to put off the joy of snowshoeing for an entire year to save that $15. Rather than scoffing at this person’s iron clad financial discipline, I should’ve instead embraced it. If it were to rub off on me, it could possibly turn my life around. So far, it hasn’t rubbed off, and I still don’t appreciate $1.59, and the figure on my bank account statement still looks like a goose egg.
