A Day Late and a Dollar Short

I've been back to blogging for only a couple weeks and I've already forgotten to post.  That's okay because it means the four to seven of you who actually read this will just have to wait until Thursday to read my blog on Wednesday.  At least I'm pretty sure that's how it this works.

What is actually good about my latency is that you don't have to read the blather I previously patched together and was supposed to put up this week.  You'll have to wait until next week for that particular manuscript.  Instead, I've been inspired to tell a story.

It was long ago when I was young and naive.

Side bar.  How the hell do you spell naive?  I've tried nieve, naive, naieve, neive, neieve, nieive, naeive, naeve, naieve, niave, naeive, neive, neaive, pnaieve, mnieve, and knaive, but they all get underlined in red.

Is it because I'm missing some stupid French accent mark? naivú, naivð, now which Alt+### do I want? õôóôñëêaèçèé  There it is.  Good old Alt+0233.  naivé, nievé...

That's it, I give up.  The French, or whoever the hell came up with the spelling for that stupid word can keep it.  Back to the story.

It was long ago when I was young and stupid.  You may be thinking, "But Mike, you're stupid now.  I mean, you can't even spell...," but then you'd stop yourself before speaking because you can't spell it either.

No, this was a kind of stupid that surrounds youth and inexperience.  I'm sure there's a word that aptly describes it, but I don't know how to spell it.

Such naiveté...  Seriously???  I got that one right? I mean, come on.

(Editor's note: Microsoft Word properly shows I spelled it correctly the second time.  The inept spell check in Chrome apparently wants me to type 'naïve' with two stupid little dots above the 'i.')

Such naiveté can be observed on a college campus near the dining hall as unlearned youth wander up to a table to fill out an application for a credit card for the promised reward of a 1-pound bag of M&M's.  Nothing says putting my education to good use quite like the simultaneous formation of an unhealthy addiction to both chocolate and debt.

It also rears its head when said college student attends a Chicago White Sox game (questionable in and of itself) without bringing extra cash or bothering to fill up the gas tank.  Thus, I found myself leaving a crowded parking lot with a yellow light reminding me how stupid I was.  To my relief, there was a gas station a couple blocks South of the park that still bore Charles Comiskey's name.  I parked my car near a pump and went inside to pay.

No cash.  I was stumped.  Here I was on the Southside of Chicago at a rather sketchy gas station, with no gas, and no money to fix that problem.  The only bright side I could find was that if I got mugged, I'd only be out an empty wallet.

Did I mention I also didn't have a phone?  No?  Well I didn't have one of those either.

I talked to the gas station attendant, explaining my plight, but he didn't see, or at least didn't offer any solution.  I paced around the gas station and checked my wallet one more time to make sure I hadn't missed some quantity of cash hidden in a secret pocket.

Then I saw it.  A plastic rectangle I kept in my wallet, though I'd never gotten around to using it.  I pulled it out and asked in the most awkwardly uneducated manner possible, "Do you guys take these things?"

The attendant, who was apparently familiar with credit cards, confirmed they did.  Relieved, I returned to my car and filled my tank, using a credit card for the first time ever.

Only now, in retelling this story, did I realize my true blunder in this adventure.  It was not the lack of cash or my unfamiliarity with credit cards.  It was my failure to remember the association that first provided me with the credit card that may or may not have saved my life that summer day.

I should have bought some M&M's.