More Useless Paper

In the mail yesterday, I got my $440 Connecticut income tax refund.
I sent it in late (past the deadline), and this is the reason I just got the refund.
I knew that I didn't actually owe anything, so what's the rush, right? :)

$440 ain't a whole lotta money anymore, but it'll come in handy come wintertime if I need it to pay for heating oil or the electric bill.
Winter is the time of year where it costs more to just survive, with the oil, electricity, and even more food you need to eat to keep from freezing to death.

There was a time in my life where $440 would have seemed like a fortune.
When I was in grammar school back in the stone age, some of the more well-off kids in class would be bragging about getting $100 for their birthday.
I estimate that $100 in 1974 would be equivalent to about $440 today, and when I was in the 4th or 5th grade, some kid my age having $100 handed to them free and clear was a mind-blower.
I mean, what's a 10-year-old kid need that much money for?
To make their car payment for the month?
Remember that this was years before there were video games, personal computers, Walkmans or ipods, laptops, digital cameras, and you could buy a full-sized candy bar for 25 cents.
A soda was 50 cents, if I recall.
A gallon of gas was 60 cents.
Yes, really.

So, $100 back in 1974 would last a typical kid a looooooooong time, indeed, unless they invested the whole thing in the stock market.
Or, handed it over to their dad so he could make the monthly car payment. :)

I hope to hell that today ain't another stay-late-at-work-until-midnight-Tuesday.
We'll see.

Off to jerk,
-John