DABlog

As of this morning, I can't find my London cell phone. Yes I know it sounds pretentious for an American even to have one... but I go to London usually two or three times a year, and you really can't have any kind of social life over there without one. Anyway, I'm at home in the U.S., and I can't find the phone.

That means I will almost certainly have to buy another one, solely because I'm too stupid to have put it away properly last time I got back from London.

I consider the price of the new phone to be a Stupidity Tax payment. I pay several hundred dollars a year in Stupidity Tax. I forget to cancel hotels; I neglect to send in rebate forms; I lose things. I have to say, the losing things thing is very deep-rooted; there's more to that syndrome than stupidity. Still, to the extent that I lose expensive things that should be simple to keep track of, their replacement is Stupidity Tax.

Thinking of all of this as Stupidity Tax actually makes it a little easier to deal with. It's just part of the cost of living. Of course I'd like to reduce it as much as possible. But it's unlikely I'll ever reduce it to zero. Life is too much of a sieve to hope for that. At least I can keep things interesting by rotating the reasons for the tax: a lost item here, a forgotten bill there. I'd like it not to get too interesting... but the Stupidity Tax is here to stay, so I might as well try to adapt to it.