My outrage has become resignation

The Missus called me today and told me that we received a bill from a “Doc in the Box” that she had to see a while back. IT was late on a Sunday and we had no choice. The charged us over $300 plus another $50 for coming in after hours. WTF? If you put a sing out that says “24 hour care” how can I be coming in after hours you dumbfucks? My cardiologist who is a member of the American College of Cardiologist and one of the best in Dallas only charges me $300 and he throws in an EKG. Every time I turn around, someone is charging me a fee for this or that. No one tells you up front what the final cost will be. It’s a fucking game to them. Call it “let’s see if they give a fuck.” I used to think that this kid of tomfuckery was due to there being too much money in circulation, but it just boils down to pure. fucking. greed.  

Not only do these shitbirds not tell you about all the hidden charges they rarely deliver what they’ve promised in the timeframe promised. Their motto is: “get the business and will worry about delivering it later.” This happened to me when I was getting my pool renovated. The guy promised it would be finished in two weeks. It took more like four weeks, and then the dumbasses chipped some of the stone. They then came back and pulled the stone and put in a new one. It didn’t match. This wasn’t some cheap two guys and truck deal. This was the top pool builder around. And yet, the fuckery continues.

Another example is the Freemium model. A hardcore gamer friend of mine remarked that iPad and Iphone games are moving to a model where they give the game for free or low cost, but you have to buy tokens and other crap to actually play the game. You don’t know this until you’ve spent $0.99 on the game, so you either pay or leave. But they still have your dollar. Fucking assholes.

Everything Apple is expensive, but what really gets my goat is the price of the fucking add on stuff. It’s bad enough I drop 700 beans for an iPad, but then I find out that any case I like is at least 50 bucks. WTF? This shit is all made in China by political prisoners and exploited villagers, so what gives? Iphone cases for $40?

It’s a fucking piece of plastic!!!!

The apple folding magnetic thingy is $70. I calculated that the operating margin on the iPad is roughly 51% which means the actual profit margin comes in around 37%. Holy smokes that’s a lot of profit! The case however is different. It has some sort of rare Earth magnets or whatever the fuck. Still, I figure the margin on that prophylactic piece of plastic has to be at least 200%. Their cables are more expensive than Monster and people will buy them rather than go to Frys and get something cheaper.

It’s everywhere and I’m giving up. I try to fight it but what can I do? I can’t go live off the land in Maine or whatever, I’m too lazy and I do like a level of material comfort. I know it’s what the corporations want. They want to lull you into a sleep of reason while they pick your carcass clean, but 

I can’t fight it anymore.

I’ve become numb to it all and distracted by my iPad.