The Price of Fun
Miranda and Pete spent four months saving up for this trip to New York. Every item on their grocery lists had been weighed against the extra few dollars that could be spent in the big city. Coins, which they had often left floating in the depths of bags, pockets and couches, were religiously collected in the kitchen coin jar. They cooked dinner, rather than eating out, six days a week, and snuck a flask into the local sports bar to avoid the $6 beers. The more effort they put into saving, the more outrageously expensive the couple found everyday necessities. “Beefsteak tomatoes for $1.99? Yikes! Let’s get plum tomatoes for $1.49…Cereal for $4.99 a box? What makes it cost so much? It’s just raisins and bran!…Single ply toilet paper? No, let’s not go that far.”
On a Friday evening in May, they left their $120,000, 2-bedroom home in an Indiana suburb of Chicago, drove to O’Hare in their hand-me-down 1994 Oldsmobile, blue book value $2,370, and parked in a spot worth $11 per day. For a ticket price of $286.47 each including taxes and fees, they landed at LaGuardia four hours later. There they caught a cab and began the $24-before-tip journey from the airport in Queens to their hotel in Midtown Manhattan.
There they would spend three nights, a long weekend in May–but not Memorial Day weekend. Holiday flights were too expensive. Pete earned $40 an hour by doing various, part-time web programming jobs. To prevent losing any money, he had taken on a few extra hours the week before they left. Miranda was a manager at local coffee shop, The Daily Grind. The owner, Don, paid her a salary with benefits, which she thought was unheard-of for a coffee shop. Even the best baristas didn’t get real salaries. But Don wanted reliability, not school kids looking for summer jobs. He liked to spend the majority of his time at his beach home up in Michigan, yes, even during the winter. He was a ski fanatic whether it was on the lake or cross-country on the snow. So Don needed someone he could trust to be at The Daily Grind at all times. Miranda knew she disappointed Don when she asked for the day off. But she had vacation days as well as the confidence of an employee who knows she’s not easily replaceable. She ran his business after all.
Their hotel room cost $234 a night and was the size of a large walk-in closet. Except in this, one couldn’t walk in very far. The king bed was pushed into a corner up against the wall. This left a 2-foot-wide aisle on the other side. Only one person could walk next to the bed at a time. Miranda and Pete had been together since the 11th grade, nearly 10 years now, and were stable enough to handle this turn-taking inconvenience without dirty looks or mean words. That’s not to say they were a perfect couple. They did have their issues. Pete often complained that Miranda would overfill things like the dishwasher, Cuisinart or grocery store basket. He felt she was unrealistic and stubborn—pushed things too far. Miranda was frustrated with Pete’s conviction that regularly used stuff should not be put away in cupboards, drawers, cabinets or closets because it should all be easily accessible. She saw this as an excuse and felt he should exert some self-control to dampen his fault of being a messy, messy person. Both gripes could surface in this cell of a bedroom. (She could stand in the small spot next to the bed and say, “You can get by me can’t you?” He could leave all of his clothes out on the floor taking up the already minimal walking space.) But neither would let these issues ignite a fight that could ruin their trip. They could fight about it on Tuesday. Their issues would still be there then.
September 14th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
well, now I know what to expect when we come to New York. That water must have been Figi water, it’s costly even in Iowa. I’m glad they didn’t buy that water. Drinking bottled water is not very green, and there is nothing wrong with tap water.