$20,000 Pile of Crap Lucky

K: From what it sounds like, someone jumped the gun.

Me: Who?

K: Those guys.

Me: What guys?

K: The other group.

Me: What group?

K: This other group. Some other guys.

Me: What the fuck are you talking about? I have no fucking clue who anyone is.

Gotta love it when people think you know everything that happens in this world.

Anyway... I thought I would talk about financial responsibility and Hilo. Those two topics just go hand in hand like peanut butter and jelly. Or maybe not.



I used to have a friend who often bragged about his awesome Harley. "This bike would be worth over $20,000 and I got it for like 6," he would drone. He would justify spending thousands of dollars on a bike because he was getting a great deal.



This isn't the same kind of Harley that he was talking about, but it doesn't matter. Most Harleys are crap anyway, so any picture would do.

The truth of this $20,000 Harley was that it looked like this:



Yessiree! That pile of crap parts you have laying about in the living room sure looks like twenty-grand. I think he mistook fantasy for reality. The fantasy could be a really kick ass bike. The reality was that he spent a shitload of cash on metallic crap.

It would be like me buying a bunch of art supplies:



Then trying to pass it off as a billion dollar painting.



Knowing my luck, I would probably accidentally punch a hole in it while showing it to friends.

Now this same guy wanted to buy an air compressor to use around the garage. Most normal, sane people would have bought maybe a 3-5 gallon compressor. Maybe even a 10-15 if they were going to use power tools.



Not this guy. He bought something close to 100 gallons. The thing was so big it was lucky he didn't have a laundry dryer. It took up the dryer spot in the laundry room.



His thinking was that it was too good a deal to pass up. I think he got it for about $500, which is a very, very good price. Totally unnecessary though. He could have bought a smaller one for under $200.

The grandiose size of the compressor matched his grandiose dreams. His plan was to have a full set of air tools... impact guns... spray guns... which could still work... with a smaller compressor... sigh...

Fool and his money and all that.

On the other hand, some fools live a charmed life. Another friend arrived home one day with this:



He found it in a surplus store and thought it was hilarious. So he bought it for $10. OK, so ten bucks is a cheap price to pay for some yucks, but did we really need a condom vending machine at home?

After admiring it for an hour, he set to it with some tools. He wanted to see the insides. He found a few condoms.



And about $8 in loose change. The previous owner never bothered to empty the coin receptacle before chucking the vending machine.



I guess it was all ribbed for his pleasure. Lucky fucker.