Day 367

I feel poor today. I usually pay bills around this time of the month, but today there were a couple of extra checks to write. Property taxes are due. I never used to think about property taxes when I had a mortgage. The property taxes are built into your mortage payment and you don't really notice them. It is only when you pay the mortgage off that you begin to notice just how much the government is taking for the privilege of letting you own a house. I hate these property taxes because they always come due at the end of the year when there are a lot of other obligations anyway. What can you do though? You either pay the tax or lose the property.

When I discovered that I wasn't completely broke after paying all the bills, I decided to buy a few things online. I must be the world's worst online shopper. Every time I try to buy something, I find myself calling the company's help line to ask why the whole process isn't working as I expected. Today, when I tried to check out, the website kept charging me postage, even though there was a big banner on the website landing page saying that all postage was free from now until Christmas. When I finally reached the help desk, the conversation went kind of like this: "I'm trying to check out and I can't find the free postage option on your shipping menu." "Let me look at your ticket sir, and see what you are ordering." "OK, I"ll wait" A short pause and then I hear "Sir, that item doesn't qualify for free postage." "Why not? Your website says you are offering free postage on everything you sell until Christmas." "Well, everything except the item you're buying....we still have to charge postage on that."

This kind of thing happens to me more than you might think. There's always a Catch-22 that lets them weasel out of the sweet deal I thought I was getting. I went ahead and ordered anyway, but the experience was irritating. Catch-22 scenarios like this are commonplace when I take my car to be repaired. I'm starting to realize that online shopping can be just as confusing.

I'm glad the weekend is here. I never really caught up on things after spending Tuesday in the hospital. I guess it doesn't take much to throw me off schedule. Hey, weekends are for catching up though. Tomorrow, I'll catch up on everything. And if I don't? Well, there's always Sunday.

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