This is not a joke entry I promise. I mean, there are jokes in it to make me feel better about myself and hopefully entertain you as I talk about losing wads of cash money $$$*, but it’s still a serious post. It’s all about human nature and good and bad people and trust and common sense** and how to cope during rough times and move on from bad break-ups (break-ups with money that is), so it’s worth a read. At least, more worth a read than my “bland/boring travel blog posts that are too happy to be interesting.” Thanks for keeping it real, mom and sister. This post wouldn’t have existed without you.
* this is what my sister and I call cold hard cash. cash money $$$ looks like this:
**I lack this.
So let’s start from the exact moment my existential crisis started last night.
At 2 A.M. on the fateful morning of October 25th, 2017, I opened my drawers to pull out some cash money $$$ because I ran out buying too many carrots at the grocery store only to find out that all the cash money $$$ I kept stored there had magically disappeared. Gone. Stolen. Poof!
My initial thought was: THIS IS BARCELONA ALL OVER AGAIN. (For those who don’t already know, I had my wallet stolen there. It was found two days later in a shoe store underneath some random shoe rack–thank you to the random salesperson who e-mailed me about it and thank you Shinyi for picking it up.) Except this time it was Barcelona x10. That was all the money that was supposed to last me until the end of the semester, but at 2 A.M. on the fateful morning of October 25th the drawer simply looked like this:
cash money $$$
Just imagine all the expletives that exploded in my brain right then and there.
I proceeded to cry and call my mom and sister to tell them what happened, and they, as the ones with common sense, gave me a very rational response to my irrational situation.
They told me to write a blog post about this whole fiasco because it’d be “much funnier to read than what I usually write.”
Almost started crying again when they said that.
But it’s true–perfect sunny days make for boring stories. So while I am still cloudy with a chance of severe salty-tear thunderstorms, I will spice up my otherwise “bland” life.
So the bad news is I no longer have cash money $$$ for carrots.
The good news is, I’m alive, I’m still healthy (thanks, carrots), I have friends (I think), I have family (a brutally honest one), I have a debit card, and I have the common sense to use that card to draw out some more cash money $$$.
The other good news is that by now I’m an expert at getting cash money $$$ taken from me in large quantities so I figured I might as well be even more generous and spend some time (time = cash money $$$) writing a comprehensive guide for you that explains how to a) have diddly squat common sense and b) deal with the consequences.
Part 1 of Amy’s Guide to cash money $$$: “Diddly Squat Common Sense”
When traveling, make sure you always carry a nice purse with you in the most crowded, touristy place of town.
Make sure you’re squeezed against as many strangers as possible so that they can at any second unzip your purse and snatch away that cute pink wallet of yours like your friend would snatch a golden fry off your plate.
Don’t check your purse for suspicious activity until you need it to buy tampons at a random convenience store.
Realize your wallet is gone and say “oh my God” 100 times fast because you know this is the fail-proof way to get God himself to appear and deliver not one, but two, new wallets for you pronto.
Cry a lot when he doesn’t show up.
Tell yourself you’ll make up for the cash money $$$ by not spending any more cash money $$$. Because starving yourself of future food and fun is the only way to regain happiness.
Attempt to place blame on someone and then ultimately blame yourself.
Feel guilty.
Continue to feel guilty.
Make everyone around you feel awkward.
P.S. While you’re out traveling, make sure to leave the cash money $$$ you didn’t take with you in the most obvious place in the room. Make sure it’s practically out in the open, and make sure it’s all in one spot, too. Don’t bother wasting the precious minute it takes to hide the cash money $$$ in different places around the room–this makes you that paranoid jerk who has no chill, and clearly, people who come in to snoop around will be sad when they can’t find anything. You don’t like when people are sad.
Part 2 of “Amy’s Guide to cash money $$$“: Join the Drama Club
Now that you’ve lost all your cash money $$$ not once, but twice because you have diddly squat common sense, there are a few things you need to do.
Feel intense pity for yourself. You just lost wads of cash money $$$ and your life sucks and no one else has it worse than you.
Back up for a second and think, yeah right, so many people have it worse than you and therefore you are terrible person for thinking x in the first place.
Keep going back and forth between steps 1-2 until you are mentally and physically exhausted and your eyes are legitimate cocoa puffs.
Pass out in bed at 4 A.M. and stay passed out until your suitemate knocks on your door to tell you class is in 10 minutes.
Curse your ability to magically turn off morning alarms and sprint out the door, with eyes still looking like those cocoa puffs.
And then when you finally stop being dumb about life, come to terms with it and realize mini misfortunes like these are bound to happen at some point and that the best thing to do is simply learn from them and move on, you’ll have slightly more common sense and sanity in the world. It’s also worth remembering that you are still privileged compared to the vast majority of the world and that problems like this are insignificant in the grand scheme of things. As Kurt Vonnegut, the go-to guru of sarcasm/dry humor/witty rebuttals, would say about your life, “So it goes.”
I actually feel much better after ranting this all out, so I guess my mom and sister’s advice worked. This afternoon, I pulled out more cash money $$$ and didn’t put it all in one obvious place. I made peace with the person who stole my original cash money $$$ by imagining how many Czech potatoes he/she will be buying with it (well over 3,500). I also ate delicious knock-off European Cocoa Puffs. Life goes on.
Also, because I am lazy and behind on life, this post will replace my missed blog posts on my trips to Brno and the Punkva Caves in the Czech Republic (Week 7) and Kraków, Auschwitz, and the Wieliczka Salt Mine in Poland (Week 8). Those experiences will remain as photographs and handwritten entries in my two journals.
Cheers to the remaining half-semester of slightly more common sense and hopefully non-empty pockets. I’m going to buy myself some more carrots tomorrow to celebrate.