My car, Johannes, a 2001 Volkswagen Jetta, is a European, hoity-toity, pinky-raising elitist! I got his oil changed this weekend; yeah, OK, it was a little overdue. Fine. Drove up to the place, really nice place at 97th and Cicero. Nice enough that they actually check what oil your car needs to, you know, run properly. Turns out, Johannes only cares for a certain type of European synthetic oil, the elitist bastard. Long story, short: $74 oil change.
I’d been told this before, but I try to forget it whenever possible. In other news, I got paid on Friday, and when I deposited my paycheck, my checking account balance increased by a delicious 9,801.36%! I wish that I could say this was due to the immensity of the paycheck … as opposed to the piddliness of the account balance … alas, Target is not known for shelling out the “big bucks.”
And I’m not the only one hurting. Looks like the bonuses for the boys on Wall Street are going to be a little less this go-around. According to the Wall Street Journal, “[t]otal pay for the top three dozen publicly held securities and investment-services firms is expected to top $140 billion,” which … OK, that’s actually a 4% increase from last year, but their bonuses … those are likely to fall a crippling 10% to 25%.
Those poor, poor bankers. They’ve had to resort to carpooling … or, well, I guess, “jet-pooling” to the Caribbean. And that just breaks my heart, what with their integrity and fiscal responsibility–especially when it comes to other people’s money. I hope they can find a little time for themselves. A mani-pedi, perhaps. Maybe an extra bottle of wine with dinner.
Sometimes you just have to spoil yourself.
The Brain Dump 