Maybe I'll talk about how lost I've been in the STL in my next blog post. (Swear that I've been here 15 times and I still don't know my way around. I actually, arrogantly, thought I was going to the right exit when I realized I had the wrong one and had to double back. I am so fucking pissed at myself right now.) But I've got to talk about how I'm pissing away money through my fingers when it comes to this vacation.
In a nutshell, here are the ripoffs:
1) Just before I left for St. Louis I was looking over my itinerary for the hotel I got through Priceline. As I was scrolling down through the fine print of the hotel information, they had a blurb that said, "Now that you have a hotel, you can get your rental -- and at special prices!" And they were special. The prices they were giving were for $17 a day. I got my car for $27 a day. I did not ever look through the itinerary to see, just in case, that they would offer a car that would actually be cheaper than what I would find on my own. I never thought it would ever be cheaper. But it turns out it was $40 (plus taxes and fees) cheaper. Why in the hell didn't I just look there? The only saving grace I can find is that the smallest car they were offering at $17 was a mid-size. I don't like driving cars that big, and maybe the mileage on the compact that I did select would somehow compensate for the gas I would be burning through in a mid-size. But I have to say this: Even though the itinerary where these special rental prices was sent, oh, three weeks before I came across these prices, I clicked on the car and they still gave me a quote ... which was less than $100. Could've gotten that for this trip.
2) My return flight is well into the evening, but my leaving flight was in the afternoon. I did not want to spend an extra day's worth of a rental, so I made it so I would spend a couple hours in the airport once I touched down, and then I would, oh, go on the St. Louis light rail to kill a few hours before I had to be at STL for my flight back.
In an attempt to kill two birds with one stone, I went to the Pasta House, a big Italian chain in the area. Have always wanted to go but haven't had the opportunity till now. It isn't great; it's like of like a regional Olive Garden. But I wanted to try it anyway.
I paired a glass of red wine with my spaghetti and The Special Salad that The Pasta House is known for. The price of the red wine was more than the plate of spaghetti. I asked the bartender if that is right.
My God, I just wanted some fucking red wine with my spaghetti!
3) Oh, the casinos fucked me over good Saturday night, so bad that I might not go back there for the rest of my stay. But crapping out three straight times without winning dick is going to happen. Combine that with losing ten bucks on a slot machine in another casino, and $50 down the toilet makes me a very parsimonious man.
Eh, fuck it, I'll probably try again.
4) I had a $5 coupon for the Hard Rock Cafe because I filled out a survey. And I had another coupon for $15 off that I could combine with the first coupon. Score! I could eat dinner and whack $20 off my meal!
No, that wasn't the case. First of all, in a stipulation that I know about and continually forget, there is a minimum purchase requirement on the $15 off coupon, and those requirements specifically exclude alcohol, like the beer I washed down my burger with. What I was left with was that burger which cost me only $14.95, and the goddamn minimum purchase was, you guessed it, $15.
The bartender had mercy on me, but in a way it got worse. He added a charge that would put me over $15 so he can apply the $15. So I still had to pay for the beer and the tax (this $15 off I guess was after tax). That came out to more than eight bucks. I wanted to adjust the total amount of money I'm paying him down because I didn't want to pay for the extra buck for the, uh, extra burger patty he added onto my bill. But he did it for me anyway, so I did what people often say I should do even though I vehemently am against it: I tipped compared to the full price of my meal instead of the post-discount price. Oh, and I tipped on the tax, too, which really annoys me.
So the total I eventually paid was $13 -- a huge chunk of change less than full price. For some reason the bartender was able to use the $15 off coupon but not the $5 off one. Full price (without the phantom extra dollar) was more than $22. So you mean to tell me that $15 off isn't $15 off, but $9?!?!?! What the hell is the discount then good for? I can see where the difference comes from: $5.50 for the beer, $2 and change for tax. And I guess I should have known that, and I guess I could have just stiffed the bartender and paid out less. But this isn't a $15 discount, is it? It's only nine.
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OK, so the ripoffs quantitatively go like this:
Rental car: $40+
Pasta House: Shoot, I don't know, but the wine should be less than an entree, shouldn't it? Eh, I'll say three bucks plus tax. Yeah, wine is expensive.
Gambling: $50
Hard Rock: $9 plus tax
Plus tax and ... oh, I think I fucked myself out of $105 so far in St. Louis. Gosh. When I put it in those terms, I should just save whatever money I have left and stay in my hotel bed for the rest of the night. Wouldn't be wasting money that way.
Man, I just fucked this up in so many ways. ...
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