A Story of Contracts

Once upon a time there was a boy, we’ll call him me.  His name won’t be me, but I’m going to share a little about myself.  And actually, I wasn’t a little boy.  I was a grown man.  Well, I guess I still am.  But this story is about the idiocy of temporary pleasure verses the wisdom of thinking a little longer term, or very long term.  I had wanted to save money by spening less on the luxury of non-broadcast television and switched from Cable Television (with Comcastic service) to Satelite service DirectV from the stars… or some such nonsense.  I would save money and get the better programming of directive DirecTV.

Except that I had to agree to a two year contract to pay DetecTV monthly during that two years or else pay a penalty fee to infecTV for each month remaining in the contact.  Being a cheerful dolt, and not ever thinking that I would ever not want to get derelicTV, I agreed to that lovely penalty.  The world was grand and there were weeks of Food Network to watch with the added benefit of children’s cartoons, educational television, and news broadcasts twenty-four hours a day slevin days a week.  The fun and entertainment we would have due to DefecTV was endless.  Until we actually wanted to end the service.

Fast-forward a year and a half and I still have half a year left of paying more a month than I need to because we’re in a bundled package from our phone/internet/smellovision provider.  Locked in for two years of promised payment even though better deals could be had (and I would actually dump my land-line phone as well, thus futher reducing my monthly outgo towards communications and entertainment).  So the young boy who was me, who I am now -  as an adult, made a dumb choice because what he wanted then was what he was obviously going to want for two years.

The moral of this story, other than avoid the shoddy equipment that comes with the ‘awesome’ package at insecTV, is that you shouldn’t commit to a contract unless you’re really, really, really, really sure that its what you need, its what you want, and that you’re going to want it in two years with just as much passion or excitement.  There are a lot of companies that masquerade as your friend until they lock you into a contract and then you discover that you’re really bound, like so many periodicals, to servitude, slavery, and to eat pudding with cement mixed into it.  And after watching enough episodes of House on satellite television, I’m confidently going to announce that I’d no longer like to eat cement, I’ve seen what it can do to your intestines, and I don’t want to undergo that kind of surgery to get it out of me.

What do you want now?  What do you think you will still want in two years that you want now?

I had someone hit this site looking for, “Would you sleep with me for a million dollars?”  I can’t believe that people would consider this, but then again, its people we’re talking about: the anonymous mass of Internet users who don’t have to be identified and so asking such a question doesn’t come with the stigma that asking it of your friends and classmates might.  The question that begs is this: What is a million dollars worth?

In our modern relativistic culture there is little value placed on sexuality within marriage, and the sanctity of marriage (sanctity being the setting aside as special) .  Sex is not worth a million dollars, that cheapens it, it is invaluable.  A million dollars is a lot of money, but it isn’t enough money to offset emotional scars, the fact that you’d be engaging in prostitution (see: Eliot Spitzer).

Various people have posed nude in magazines for money, taken jobs that they didn’t agree with because of a high paying salary, and of course there’s the age old televangelist schtick as well.  Money is not important if it is gained in an ill gotten fashion.  Having standards, focusing on the long term impact (how many women did something pornographic and then had children and were mortified that their children would find out?  What about parents finding out?).

A million dollars won’t buy you happiness, love, or a long term financial state (it is just as easily lost on frivolous activities and spending).  What’s a million dollars worth to you?  Is it worth your dignity?