the guiding princible of the universe

i call it “the bigger idiot theory”…

…and of all people, i learned the title from al bundy. as in the character on married with children.

i was once watching a married with children episode when al bundy made reference to reselling (or at least buying) crap and referred to the resaled of said junk as being governed by “the bigger idiot theory”. he then expounded his point to indicate the only flaw in the theory is that, eventually, you run into the head idiot…

…and his kids called her “mom”.

i later realized a lot of things fall into that category. go back a decade (which would be damn near half a decade after the aforementioned MWC episode) and i was dating a girl name jen who was into the whole beanie baby thing. i was the bigger idiot because i would actually spend MY five bucks to by her what was essentually a bean bag shaped like a bear or whatever. of course she found even bigger idiots that would buy her extra five dollar bean bag for close to a hundred…

…and so the circle of life continues with me selling a $100 pair of jordan’s i got for $45 a decade or so ago at the outlet mall (and subsequently wore the shit out of) for $175 to some dipshit in southern cali.

but it’s not always about buying shit.

when i used to work box offices idiots who damn well KNEW that they weren’t on the list would try to scam their way in for free past me, figuring me for the bigger idiot. they were wrong, of course, but tried any way. i thought i had heard it all, then i went to pay my mortgage last week.

the current girl i’m “dating” is extremely frugal. the bargain hunter’s bargain hunter. if she can use a coupon on top of a sale on top of some clearance flyer she’ll do it. i once saw her get a $150 pair of jeans for eight bucks with the tag still on them. amazing skills. we’ve been hanging out for the better part of a year and i guess some of it has rubbed off on me ’cause my mortgage company charges fifteen bucks to do check-by-phone, and twelve bucks to pay online. but if you use western union quick collect it’s only ten bucks. lookie-lookie i just saved two bucks, and i needed something from the grocery store anyway!

(to further illustrate my point, i’m typing this out on my notebook (which can’t connect to her neighbors wireless router so save it’s ass) while she’s on her PC going through thirty minutes of hunting to end up saving six dollars on a year’s worth of contacts. this will ultimately make us late to celebrate her birthday with her family and delay a family lake outing, but hell – she saved six bucks!)

moving on…

so i went to pay my mortgage the other day and was third in line at the customer “care” counter at the local grocery store. the first woman had a money order to cash, but had no i.d. she went through the whole sob story about needing that money as it was all she had, needed gas for her car, food for her children, lights about to get turned off, etc, etc.

i later found out that the money order was only for $25. how you fill your tank, pay your uitility bill, and feed your kids for $25 i don’t get. perhaps i just suck at budgeting.

the next guy wanted to send money…off his check card. no dice. when you wire money, you wire MONEY…not credit. he no comprende (english was not his mother tounge). that was all she wrote for him.

after witnessing this it should come as no suprise that i felt i HAD to fuck with the poor girl, so i asked if i could wire $1000 to puerto rico using a third party out of state check. she gave me a blank stare, i burst out laughing, and dropped ten $100 bills on the counter.

i was her new best friend.

in the course of getting all settled up some how it came out that she had actually dealt with people MORE stupid than those i had seen earlier, including one gentlemen who had come in needing to wire $500 by noon today, realized he only brought $300, and asked if she would put the western union through for all $500 and he would just bring her the other $200 later…

…that didn’t work.

i can’t blame her. for the most part, if people were trust worthy and fiscally responsible they would be wiring money from a BANK – not a counter where you buy lotto tickets, schlitterbahn passes, and return bad milk. the honor system has no place here. in the words of ray liota, “fuck you, pay me…”

…and if you don’t live by that code, then who’s the bigger idiot?