The Stupidity Tax

I forget where I got this term from, but it is meaningful in my life. It's the phrase I use when I wind up paying a fee I shouldn't have, or paying more for something than I should have because I didn't do enough research.

In this case it's (ANOTHER) $20 parking ticket. I just had one last week! They're both from forgetting to check the street cleaning signs to see where I could/couldn't park. I did this twice when I first moved here, and then vowed "never again" -- and kept that vow until last week when I didn't check, and today when I didn't check. I guess I've had a lot on my mind, but I'm just so mad at myself for being so flaky. This is $40 I definitely could have spent in better ways.

Including the $20 bill I dropped somewhere on the ground at the farmer's market earlier this year, I think this brings the stupidity tax total for the year to $60 (two parking tickets, one lost $20). I suppose in the grand scheme of things it could be worse, but...still.

The worst is that I know they do not need to "street clean" this often and it's not even clear they *do* street cleaning. I think it's mostly a convenient way to raise a lot of revenue that the city then doesn't have to get from other sources who would be even less happy about it (businesses, income taxes.) This way the burden falls most heavily not on the richest, but on the dumbest.

Including yours truly, I guess. Sigh.