Having Fun With Outrageously High Prices!
What places of business have the most ridiculously high prices? A few jump immediately to my mind: the snack bar at a movie theater, the beer stand at a baseball stadium, and convenience stores along the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Can you think of others? Why, of course you can. Please use the comments link below, to tell us all about it.
Also, where has an outrageous price genuinely shocked you? In what situation?
I attended my first corporate convention in San Francisco, in 1990. I didn’t confess this fact to anyone, but it was the first time I’d ever flown. I was 27, and had never before been on an airplane. We flew Eastern, and the plane was almost empty; it seemed to be just me and a few of my co-workers.
After we took off from Atlanta, everyone spread out, and we each had our own row. Everybody was lying cross-ways across the seats, just chillin’. Later, I was disappointed to learn that this was a rare occurrence, and not a normal flight. Eastern went belly-up the following year, I believe, and I never got to stretch my legs on an airplane again.
The thing that shocked me — completely blew me away, in fact — was the vending machine near the stairs in our hotel. It was a Coke machine, I believe, that sold 12 oz cans. The price? $1.00. I don’t know what the regular price was in those days, but seeing that “$1.00” printed on the front of the machine made me cut loose with an involuntary holy shit! And I still remember it clearly, 20 years later.
Yeah, I was a hick. What of it?
Oh, and by the way… the headlining act at that convention was Iggy Pop. He was the final performer, on the last night, and completely rocked the joint. After about two or three songs, elderly credit managers and unadventurous advertising execs were scrambling for the exits, with their fingers in their ears. I loved it. Those were great days to be sucking the corporate teat.
Several years later, while also traveling with the company, we stayed at the Helmsley Palace Hotel in New York City. A couple of us went down to the lobby bar before dinner the first night, and I ordered a bottle of Heineken and laid down a $5 bill. The bartender just stood there, and I was confused so I picked up the money and handed it to him. “$7.50,” he said, and I almost dropped a rectal plate.
A similar thing happened in California, at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Bill was staying there (also because of work), and I met him for a few beers. I can’t remember the exact details, but the bar tab ratcheted upward at an impossibly high rate of speed. Every time we ordered another round, it added about twenty bucks to the bill. For just the two of us! Sweet sainted mother of Dr. Rosen Rosen.
In the lobby that night we saw Ed McMahon, in case you were wondering about celebrities. And while we were out drinking and driving later in the evening (a tradition of sorts), the presidential motorcade went cruising past, along with about a million cops on motorcycles. My sphincter didn’t release for another week, at least.
Many years earlier, I took a girl to the senior prom and we went to a fancy restaurant called Lindy’s or Laury’s or something like that. And our bill was $72.00. This was in 1981, when my weekly take-home pay was roughly $103.00. It was shockingly expensive, and according to this site, it equals $167.76 in today’s money. That’s a lotta scratch for a doofus zitster.
And finally, the prices of houses in California shocked me. I remember telling our agent we wanted to spend about $150,000, and her showing us tiny dump in a far-flung town after tiny dump in a far-flung town. Little did I know… prices were WAY DOWN. A few years later it got completely out of hand, and we couldn’t have afforded to buy an aluminum tool shed.
And those are your Questions of the Day. What businesses have the most outrageous prices, places like movie theater snack bars and such? Also, please tell us about situations where you were genuinely shocked by the price of some everyday item or service. Use the comments link below.
And I’ll see you guys again on Tuesday.
Have a great day!
Filed under: Daily
My house was $350K five years ago…now, 250 or so.
jtb
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I haven’t bought any grass in the last 25 years or so, but when I was smoking enough to purchase an ounce at a time, an ounce was $10.
My understanding is that it’s higher now.
jtb
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Malcolm Reply:
February 14th, 2011 at 1:14 pm
The price of a nickel bag of pot is almost always the same amount as “fast cash” at the ATM. Coincidence? I think not.
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And I’m running way behind on the Race for the Case. I don’t know who is leading at this point, but it’s a new year, so there’s still time for a comeback. I understand last year’s winner consumed the entire first prize in one evening and hasn’t been first since.
jtb
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I believe the mechanics union killed eastern.
My first job out of college had some used eastern aircraft I thunk. Think.
Went to pops route 66 today and was a little shocked at the price. But good soda and ok beer a book and a tshirt….
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I was a bit shocked when gas prices recently snuck up and over $3/GAL and I did not hear much local chatter about it.
In the worst of it we never had prices this high
My biggest gripe is Milk by the gallon
it has more than doubled in my short adult life.
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Lee Harvey Ramone Reply:
February 14th, 2011 at 11:06 am
Thanks, Egypt!
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I dont get bent out of shape over gas and secretly think it should be more expensive. I do notice that it goes up people bitch and it drops but never as low as it was and then creeps up again.
Gas in Atlanta 1997 $.72 per gallon.
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Casey J Reply:
February 15th, 2011 at 8:43 am
I remember that!!
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FYE, the mall DVD/music store. Their sale prices on DVDs are more expensive than everyone else’s regular prices.
The price of corn struck me as being insanely high while we were shopping this summer. It used to be like 10 ears for a dollar. At a NYC bar called The Slaughtered Lamb in the west village, my wife ordered a bottle of beer called Hobgoblin simply because she liked the name and it ended up costing around $13 which I thought was outrageous. Hourly labor rates for car repairs are insane as well.
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Malcolm Reply:
February 14th, 2011 at 1:17 pm
The reason dealers negotiate car prices down (they have anywhere from $1-3K to play with) is that they make WAAAAYYY more money on repairs and maintenance. I have a friend who works as a mechanic for a Honda dealership and they have quotas for repairs. WTF?
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Just visited a sports and outdoor show, at the Harrisburg, farm show bldg, beers were $5.50, water 2.50! and a crab cake samlich $7.00.
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when i was doing computer/networking and home automation design my company charged $200/hr for me. I only got about $20/hr for that….
that was shocking….
I remember the first blowjob I ever got… the cost for that was WAY too high what with all the nagging and having to buy the chick gifts etc…
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T. Farty McAppleass Reply:
February 14th, 2011 at 1:06 pm
I remember the first blowjob I ever got… the cost for that was WAY too high what with all the nagging and having to buy the chick gifts etc…
That’s why you never hire family man, never hire family.
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fattie20xl Reply:
February 14th, 2011 at 2:45 pm
Fuck you man!
You made me spit coffee out my nose! Hahahaah:)
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Just had to pay over $850 for tires…Jeeezus
The Donald killed Eastern
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The Red Fox at Snowshoe Mtn. Resort set me back for $78 for the wife and me in the mid 1990′s. It stood as my most expensive tab ever until her birhday around 2004 when we crossed the $100 barrier at Savannah’s in Huntington, WV.
Food and drink at any sports stadium is ludicrous. Nachos, hot dog (with nothing on it) and a pop at Mountianeer Field was $10 which I found to be a bargain–showing I’m becoming desensitized.
I’m with Jeff on the $1.00 for a Coke in a hotel machine in Orlando in 1986. I remember saying, “Bullshit if I’ll EVER pay more than 35-cents for a Coke!!!” Yeah, I was a hick AND a hothead in those days–and 25-years later nothing has changed.
Finally, I recall forking over $5.50 for a can of Copenhagen in the Atlanta Airport in 1989 during a raging nicotine fit. I found that to be crazy expensive–but this was in the days before the asshole tobacco nazis entered the mainstream..in 2005 I paid $14 for a can in Spokane, Washington. I was stuck there on a weeklong conference and learned a valueable lesson. Now for all out-of-towners I pack two or three rolls of contraband snuff and chew bought at the bootleg price in West Virginia. A footnote to the Spokane story. I found a way to fuck those dickheads and their sin taxes when I headed over to Idaho on a fishing trip and found an oasis of cheap tobacco known as an Indian Reservation–who had the much more reasonable West Virginia price on snuff and chew.
Buck Out
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Ivan Reply:
February 14th, 2011 at 6:35 pm
Yeah I am a college student out here in Idaho, and as a smoker I can tell you this is a mecca for all tobacco goods.
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Accidentally bought a couple of cocktails at the Plaza hotel in NYC a couple of years ago. Forty bucks, EACH.
For 2 double bourbons. Yow.
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Commercial signage. That’s the racket to be in. I recently priced a pole sign with an electronic message center…$34,000 dollars. You can’t even live in it or anything.
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t-storm Reply:
February 17th, 2011 at 6:11 pm
Just hire some radio station douche to camp out on it for a month. Do they still do that?
And was the sign for a business or just to piss off christians?
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A friend was recently had a procedure to sonically break up a large kidney stone. Didn’t take long at all. Cost? Freakin’ $17,000!
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johnthebasket Reply:
February 14th, 2011 at 9:30 am
Back surgery. Seven hour procedure, four nights in the hospital, minimal hospital-based therapy; the kid across the street came and spent one day and night in my hospital room because it wasn’t easy to locate a nurse when I wanted to move around or lift anything over a pound.
$410,000.
jtb
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Bill in WV Reply:
February 14th, 2011 at 12:00 pm
And, that my friend, is precisely what is wrong with this country.
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johnthebasket Reply:
February 14th, 2011 at 6:50 pm
Bill…
I thought it was the 16% real unemployment, the near total lack of capital available to small businesses, and the fact that our sons and daughters and mothers and fathers are still bravely fighting and dying in two land wars in Asia. Democracies are damn imperfect forms of government.
But I don’t disagree that the price of my surgery is fucked up. That’s why I commented on it.
jtb
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Putski Reply:
February 14th, 2011 at 6:55 pm
HOLY SHIT!!!!! Did they ask for your firstborn too? That is horrendous. I once had an operation on my nose under general aneathetic and it didn’t cost me a cent! I guess we do have some things going for us here in Oz.
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johnthebasket Reply:
February 14th, 2011 at 8:01 pm
Putski…
Oz has a fine national health system. I hate to think what my surgery would have cose had I thrown in the nose as well. We’re struggling to find a way to provide decent health care to our citizens without going broke. We’ve made a small start, but we have far to go. Wish us luck.
jtb
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The vending machine at work. Smaller sized packages priced higher than the normal sized packets at the variety store down the block, not that variety store prices are anything to get excited about.
Cost of oil filters. (here in Canada). Even a shitty Fram is $7.99 now. (vs the $2.59 I was paying a few years ago for ACDelco and Motorcraft filters).
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Bill in WV Reply:
February 14th, 2011 at 12:01 pm
That’s the WeGotcherAss markup.
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Valentin Reply:
February 14th, 2011 at 1:09 pm
Fram is made in Canada, is it not?
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Tyrosine Reply:
February 14th, 2011 at 4:24 pm
They used to be, in Chatham Ontario, but I don’t know if the plant is still open. I would guess they’re made somewhere in China by now.
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Razor blades (15 bucks for 5?)
Cds at Barnes and Noble (18 dollars)
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madz1962 Reply:
February 14th, 2011 at 10:56 am
yeah! WTF is it with razor lades costing a tit and a cheek? Cripes, it’s a sliver of metal, not a gold bar.
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T. Farty McAppleass Reply:
February 14th, 2011 at 1:09 pm
I learnt how to use a good old fashioned straight razor several years ago. It’s not as scary as you’d think. God knows how much I’ve saved on disposable razors. By the time I’m dead it’ll be in the thousands.
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madz1962 Reply:
February 14th, 2011 at 2:43 pm
Sorry, T. Farty, but the thought of taking a straight edge to the pits or pube areas IS downright scary. I’ll just keep bitching about the price of blades!
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fattie20xl Reply:
February 14th, 2011 at 2:49 pm
I shave my head…. I can’t fathom using that there…. or on my balls. I was already circumsized…..
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T. Farty McAppleass Reply:
February 14th, 2011 at 3:05 pm
I can see why a lady wouldn’t want to go with a straight razor. Maybe that’s why so many women were sascrotches back in the day.
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Tyrosine Reply:
February 14th, 2011 at 4:30 pm
Buy an old fashioned safety razor. They’re not as scary as a straight razor, and the blades are cheap: 10 Feather blades (which are dammed good and sharp as hell) are about $6 and will last 2 months.
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I live in New York so nothing surprises me anymore.
Gallon of regular gas: $3.49
Pack of smokes: $10.75
Average house price: $500,000
I went to see a taping of Jimmy Fallon in early December. We went to wet our whistles at some toursit trap bar near Rockefeller Plaza. The tree was up, the sidewalks were packed and a glss of wine was $14.00. I think we dropped $70 on two drinks each. Frickin ridiculous.
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In the early ’90′s I was in a Mexico City strip bar when 3 “girls” sat with us and we ordered them drinks. Turns out that the drinks were much more than we thought they’d be and had trouble getting out of the club until we negotiated a settlement where we left some jewelry as collateral until we came back with the pesos. Something like $175 for 3 drinks (gringo prices).
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My divorce [the second one] is just turning the corner on $500,000.
So Boo Hoo, you paid for an expensive drink in an expensive hotel in an expensive town.
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madz1962 Reply:
February 14th, 2011 at 10:52 am
Holy moly, Henderson! Maybe you should marry your attorney?
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WB in OH Reply:
February 14th, 2011 at 11:17 am
That’s some expensive puss.
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My brother was recently discharged after being in the hospital for the past two months. All of the bills are rediculous, but as I was going over them yesterday, I found a charge for $2700.00 for a 30 minutes consult, in which the doctor recommended more testing!!!!! Unreal.
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Broken leg: $38,000
Cigs are still fairly cheap in WV. If you consider $3 a pak for some generic Made in Turkey throat burners cheap.
Coffee is ridiculous now. $13 for a can of Colombian? I think not.
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I have an Eastern Airlines story:
I took an Eastern Airlines flight to LAX from Florida back in 1989 (right before the mechanics union killed the airline), and experienced an aborted takeoff. Apparently a warning light in the cockpit went off during takeoff, and the pilot had to slam on the brakes. To this day, I believe that this was a case of corporate sabotage. Thanx for that scare, mechanics union!
Heh, I said cock
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Plastic bottle of beer at Yankee Stadium: $18
Seats where you can sort of see half the field: $27
A couple of years I was considering a job at JPL in Pasadena. I looked on the MLS realtor’s page and the absolute cheapest house for sale in Pasadena was just over 300,000. WTF man, what does a beer cost in Calilfornia these days?
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Michelle Reply:
February 14th, 2011 at 4:33 pm
At the grocery store (where it’s usually the cheapest) it’s $10 a six pack for something like Sierra Nevada.
Houses never were and never will be affordable in CA. Home ownership is just not possible here.
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Plumbers.
On a large bid to a home improvement contractor, the plumbing portion came to $7000. That’s seven grand for labor alone, for a two-person, twelve hour job.
Works out to $292 per hour per plumber, about what a corporate lawyer would charge. And plumbers ain’t corporate lawyers.
Moral of the story: if possible, always bid separately and on a per-hour basis.
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Didn’t happen to me, but around 20 years ago a friend went into a local long-established barber shop/men’s stylist for a haircut, was in the chair for around three minutes, and was charged $39. He said they didn’t even plop gel in his hair or vacuum the clippings away from his neck…
Vending machine prices tend to be influenced by their location; on my college campus Pepsi and such goes for $1.50 while most candy bars are around a dollar and potato chips a little higher. Less than a mile away at a veterinarian’s office the exact same servings of Pepsi are sixty-five cents, candy bars are seventy cents, and chips are fifty cents!
Have you seen the price of Spam lately? Nearly $4 a can! I thought it was supposed to be cheap!
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Hair cuts. It generally takes my barber 10 minutes to cut my hair. The price is $15.95, plus I generally give her $3 as a tip, so rounding off, about $19. Multiply that x six and a barber is charging $114/hour to cut hair. Those are associate lawyer/accountant rates and it churns my butter every time I have to pay to get the grass on my green back to where it was a month ago.
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Chuck in Belpre Reply:
February 14th, 2011 at 4:20 pm
Mine charges $10 + $3 tip. Does a good job but the last two times I was in there some barber-shop inspectors (I shit you not) came in and harshed my mellow. Something about a chick cutting my hair…well…I enjoy it.
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johnthebasket Reply:
February 14th, 2011 at 7:57 pm
Chuck…
Dude, you’re going to have to expand on that story. My town is barely able to provide police and fire services; Belpre can afford not one, but two barber shop inspectors? Obviously, for ten bucks, she’s not performing added services. What’s the deal?
Thanks in advance…
jtb
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Chuck in Belpre Reply:
February 14th, 2011 at 9:20 pm
Alright…no need to be snarky. I like my little hole in the wall town.
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johnthebasket Reply:
February 15th, 2011 at 1:57 am
Not snarky, curious. How about some routine questions; perhaps I’m just too dense…
1) Is it illegal for a woman to cut hair in Belpre?
2) If not, why were they inspecting her?
3) What the hell do barber shop inspectors inspect that can keep at least two B-S inspectors busy full time?
4) Is three bucks really a large enough tip for someone who only charges ten bucks for a haircut?
5) Why was your mellow harshed by two inspectors walking in the door? Were they pushing your barber around because she disposed of clippings illegally?
I’ll admit this story perplexes me. Perhaps it’s another of those jackrabbit things about me being from a fairly provincial part of the country and not getting out much.
Belpre sounds like a very nice place, but I’d have to know more about the hair detectives before I paid an extended visit.
best…jtb
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The caption under the bunker cam should read, “I’m sorry, I work with a bunch of Dicks!”
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Bill in WV Reply:
February 14th, 2011 at 12:07 pm
Peters in Bloom !
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The current price of gasoline is outrageous.
My car has a 93 octane tune and requires the high grade fuel. Current price here is $1.30 per litre which equates to $4.92 per US gallon.
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Bought a flat in San Francisco in 1997 for $225,000. Sold it in 2004 for $710,000. Didn’t even have parking.
Thanks, Dotcom Dickheads! You ruined San Francisco, but made me some money!
BTW, I used to bitch about gas prices in SF because the refineries are local so they didn’t have to truck it far and we still had the highest prices in the nation. Now I live in Italy and pay the equivalent of $6.50 a gallon. Oh, $3 gas…how I miss you!
Happy Monday, Surfers!
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Chuck in Belpre Reply:
February 14th, 2011 at 12:46 pm
Yes…but those Fiats get unbelievable mileage. Mainly because they won’t start.
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Knucklehead Reply:
February 14th, 2011 at 12:52 pm
We got a Renault. The used Fiat diesels were ridiculously expensive. And yes, we do get 52 miles to the gallon.
Why don’t they do that in the States?
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Chuck in Belpre Reply:
February 14th, 2011 at 4:16 pm
Because us fat-asses won’t buy them in mass quantities. We talk a good game but we buy SUV’s and Big Duallies or whatever the hell those small penis guys drive.
Now the bigger Alfa’s…if they bring those over they might sell.
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Dave's not here, man Reply:
February 14th, 2011 at 12:54 pm
I’m pretty sure California has a law that they can’t sell gas unless it was refined in California. You’d think that would make it cheaper since they’re buying locally, but that seems to just make the price waaay higher in California than anywhere else in the US.
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t-storm Reply:
February 17th, 2011 at 6:18 pm
I’m not a car guy, but I am into the whole “green” bullshit and this is pretty awesome.
http://inhabitat.com/porsche-unveils-brand-new-boxster-e-electric-car/
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Vehicle maintenance is shockingly high these days!
$570 for front brakes and rotors.
$1185 for tires.
$995 for shocks and struts.
$936 for spark plug change and a coolant flush.
All since Sept 2010 on a 2005 Ford F-150.
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Son of Sam Reply:
February 15th, 2011 at 7:55 am
Your getting fucked
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t-storm Reply:
February 17th, 2011 at 6:19 pm
The spark plug and coolant one seems a bit high.
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chill Reply:
February 17th, 2011 at 6:24 pm
Last week I paid $1337 for a new engine wiring harness. Not under warranty, because it failed due to being eaten by mice.
You understand, Mickey, that this means war.
.
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The Apple Store
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Just went to the movies last night. (FYI: Saw “The Rite” with Anthony Hopkins….don’t bother). Smallest popcorn they had, small drink, small slushie, box of sour patch kids = $17. Fucking robbery.
Took my dog to the vets. Rx for heart med that she’ll be on for the rest of her life….$12. Went back to get it refilled….$28. I asked why the difference. They said because the first time was with an office visit. Wotta crock. I looked on line “PetMeds”. It costs 6 bucks for the same thing. Fuckers.
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Jason Reply:
February 14th, 2011 at 1:27 pm
“The Rite” was bad? Thanks for the heads up. I was going to go tonight. Maybe I’ll just stay home and pull a muscle instead.
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bikerchick Reply:
February 14th, 2011 at 3:35 pm
It was “ok”. I would wait for On Demand or the DVD. If you like shit about being possessed by the devil and exorcism you may like it. I also love Anthony Hopkins. But thought the lead character had the personality of a doorknob. Not worf the $18 ticket prices.
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Jason Reply:
February 14th, 2011 at 3:39 pm
We’re going to the melting pot, then to watch the studdering king, or whatever it is. Thanks.
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bikerchick Reply:
February 14th, 2011 at 4:06 pm
Shit! Last time we went to the Melting Pot, we were there for over 3 hours. Maybe you won’t even make the movie and just go home for your VD romp.
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Jason Reply:
February 14th, 2011 at 7:38 pm
Wait, does “VD” mean venereal disease? Because I think I have it. We’re already home. Skipped the movie. I had some drinks, but not so many that I have a dead soldier.
I’m about to go “porn star” on her ass. Woo! Look out!
Wish me luck – seriously, wish me luck. Happy VD bikerchick!
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Last time we went to Germany, a year or two ago, the price of gas was the equivelent of $7.50 a gallon. And to buy a Coke you practically had to leave them your watch.
Airports fuck you good and deep. $12 for a bottle of water, $50 for a decent porn magazine, things like that.
I saw a Dallas Cowboys game at their new stadium this year. Jesus Christ, from parking and everything else, they really give it to you good. Beer was absurd – it would cost you hundreds of dollars to get drunk. I think our tickets were around $700 and the seats didn’t match what the interweb showed. $700 for the nosebleed section.
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No use being shocked by gas prices, when they were $4.00 plus a gallon after the hurricanes in the Gulf. They will be there again soon and there’s nothing we can do about it but bend over and take it dry.
Circuit City here tended to overprice everything by about 33 percent, as this city is catered toward the haves and not the have nots. And the haves will just continue to pay it. I was happy to see the local Circuit City burn down.
Theme parks are uncontrollled, but when your kids are dying of thirst from waiting two hours to ride a one minute ride, you have to get it. Usually just spring for the fill-it-up-all-day cup for one outrageous amount.
The price of corn is probably going up for that corn-to-gasoline fiasco. Someone needs to develop the urine-to-fuel process. We’ll never run out of urine. Wouldn’t it be great to just piss in our gas tanks? Sorry ladies, you’ll probably need to find a donor.
Quit going to the movies, quit buying gas on Mondays, quit buying soda for a month. The prices will ALL go down.
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bikerchick Reply:
February 14th, 2011 at 4:08 pm
A funnel and a hose will do just fine…If that’s what it took to fill my gas tank, sign me up.
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I made the huge ass mistake of buying everyone dinner at Ruth’s Chris a few weekends ago. 8 of us. The bill was just under $1,300 before tip. I thought it was an obvious mistake. I told the waitress that we ordered dinner, not a black-market liver. But turns out I was wrong. God. That’s a lot of money. The girl could have given me a handjob, at least.
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We did Orlando with the kids a few years ago. We stayed in a run-down motel in Kissimee for $50 a night – you’re only there to sleep, so who cares?
We drove down in one day from NC, and one day going back, for $120 in gas.
Before leaving I made a ton of pizzas and sandwiches that we kept in a cooler in the motel room – we brought our own food and juice into the parks every day – everyone kept asking where we got such good looking pizza.
This enabled us to put the bulk of our money into tickets – $600 worth over 3 days of theme parks.
So, our family of four had three days in Orlando for less than a grand. We are cheapskates, no doubt, but at those ticket prices and our income level at the time, there was no other way.
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Also, all the prices in the UK look great until you realize they are in pounds, not dollars (x 2). Our entire three weeks there in 2007 was one sticker shock after another.
Especially when filling the shitty little Peugot 307 rental with gas for $100 each time.
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Have you seen the price of Tic Tacs these days?!?
Makes me want to open a dresser drawer and yell at my socks……
YOU STUPID SOCKS!!! GET A JOB OR SOMETHING YOU LAZY SOCKS!!!
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Bill in WV Reply:
February 14th, 2011 at 1:59 pm
LOL!
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Jenny Piccalo Reply:
February 15th, 2011 at 2:56 am
Awesome!
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$4 for a tube of chapstick in Vegas (worth every penny at the point when I broke down and actually laid out the cash)
$4 bottle of water (WATER!) in any amusement park in Florida…where it might be over 100F and a health hazard not to drink the stuff.
$4 to PARK at my son’s Dr. office…in a semi-rural town. Really? I have to pay for the privilege of being within walking distance to see a DOCTOR. Highway robbery!
Clearly I don’t like spending four bucks on anything!
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Hotel restaurants are always grossly over priced, as is the honor bar. The last place I was at wanted $9.00 for a small Toblerone. No. Fucking. Way. If I eat anything at the honor bar I replace it before check out.
In Paris a couple of years ago I paid the equivalent of $7.00 for a 750ml bottle of water. It was hotter than the gates of hell and I was glad to pay it at the time, but I made sure to find a grocery store later that day and buy a full case of water for half the price so I could avoid the high priced vendors.
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I went to some place in New York City because it was evidently the place to go (that week anyway, I’m sure nobody’s even heard of it now). It was not the sort of place I would normally go, but when you’re a guest you do these things. A beer, a regular bottle of Budwiser that is, was $17. It wasn’t even particularly cold and needless to say I had to make it last a while at that price.
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The Inn at Little Washington. Very nice place, but room rates are north of $700 a night. The restaurant’s wine list has many bottles in the $2000 to $8000 range.
Any parking garage in Manhattan.
The big shock was the price of smokes in Vegas. It was about double what I was accustomed to.
.
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Two beers and a glass of water in St Tropez about 5 years ago – $29Euro. I had to take a photo of the receipt I was so shocked.
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Gas… it isn’t so terrible here in Texas ($3.50 a gallon right now) but our shit-eating can gets about 10 miles a gallon in the city. Result? I walk to and from work. It saves a little money, but not much.
The professional societies I have to belong to for my job are outrageous as well – one of them is over $300 a year. I publish enough in their journal, you think I would get it free, but no.
Finally, my husband’s child support in Massachusetts takes about 2/3 of his income. No shit. For one kid. Our son together literally gets nothing as a result and I get to support our entire family while his lazy ex literally babysits a few hours a week and then calls him all day long is the support is late. I see red every time.
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t-storm Reply:
February 17th, 2011 at 6:23 pm
I’m seeing red just reading it.
My brother had to pay child support for my nephew for about 5 of his so far 8 years. But when dumb bitch got the kids (2 from another idiot who banged her) removed because she is a shitty parent and possibly a drug addict she doesn’t have to pay shit.
That is some bullshit.
Moral of the story kids is think about what you are doing, and who you are doing it to.
I paid 2.96/gallon here in OKC today.
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NYC bridge tolls, WTF? I hadn’t been up there in a while, wasn’t paying attention to the signs and just handed the lady a $10 and got the “I’m
waiting” stare. 11 bucks? sheeesh.
This isn’t the panama canal we’re talking about.
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Being from said county maybe they are county inspectors and not city. Or maybe he was being fictitious and it was just dumbasses from the neighborhood
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Disney folks. Family of four, dinner(without fancy dinner plan). fifty bucks easy. And we aren’t talking good food, just slop from under the lamps. We were in shock, and the rest of the week I ate off the kids plates. If we ever go again we are driving, bringing all our food and getting a place with a kitchen.
what can I say, we are cheap.
That and the Mcdonalds fries inside Magic Kingdom. Fries and cokes came to like 80 some dollars. Up the road at the drivethru…8.97.
My son needs therapy, and Occupational Therapy (if you pay privately) is $86.00 for 15 MINUTES. Holy fuck.
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and one person in the family of four was a baby, on formula
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I work in gasoline supply and if you knew what we went through to get gasoline to your local station, you’d be amazed. It’s only because of trading, sheer volume and byproducts that oil companies make money. Depending on market fluctuations, we can make maybe 10 cents per gallon or lose just as much. Best part is, we gotta keep moving it, cuz shutting a refinery down can cost tens of millions of dollars a day.
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Jason Reply:
February 17th, 2011 at 6:22 pm
While the government gets their .35 or more per gallon, no matter what. Then they march oil companies before congress and bitch about their “outrageous” profits. Fuck them.
Same goes with cigarettes. And any number of other things.
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I’m with everybody except the guy talking about the price of signs, and I mention it only because it’s what I do for a living.
You didn’t mention specifics (height, whether it’s going on an existing pole, how big, one or two sides), but that actually sounds like the going rate for a pole sign with a message center.
I paid $250 for a ticket to see Paul McCartney about seven years ago. That was crazy expensive, I thought- but hey, he was a goddamned Beatle. When I saw U2 was on tour a few years ago, I thought- cool, be interesting to see their show. That was, until I saw the $300 price tag for seats that were so fucking far from the stage they weren’t in the same zip code. Mick bastards.
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Ooops, almost ordered Amazon without going through here.
3 cd’s on my way:
“Up From Below” Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros; Audio CD; $9.11
“Sigh No More” Mumford & Sons; Audio CD; $7.99
“Lungs” Florence + the Machine; Audio CD; $9.99
Also the nerd in me ordered two of these today:
http://www.sparkfun.com/products/10332
And back to music, you don’t know how happy I am that the Black Keys won 3 grammys. Overall fuck the grammys. But the Black Keys are from Ohio, Woooooooooooooooo!
And they are awesome.
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chill Reply:
February 17th, 2011 at 8:25 pm
I ordered from another Sparkfun property: http://batchpcb.com/ – get your circuit boards fabricated on the cheap! I paid something like $2 a board, and they are nice – good quality. But it takes a while. But so what.
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t-storm Reply:
February 17th, 2011 at 8:28 pm
I’ve been ordering something from them on a weekly basis, every payday. One of my projects is going to be a beer coozie that flashes LED’s as the beer gets warmer and/or emptier.
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chill Reply:
February 17th, 2011 at 8:33 pm
I think I read about a real-life robot that will fetch (or throw?) you a beer on command. But the ultimate would be a glass with a Star Trek “transporter” built in, so it just beams in more whenever your glass gets low.
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