three hundred dollar mistakes

I got a $273 drinking in public ticket. I was out of college, but partying with old friends… Two plain clothes cops saw me drinking a bottle of Jim Beam on the sidewalk outside the corner store where I got it. They followed me in, and proceeded to take down my license, et cetera, and pour the bottle in the trash. In the trash! I begged them to let me keep it.

To show them, I purchased a smaller bottle of whiskey once they were gone, and drank it at Cloyne. I wound up (appropriately) puking in a trash can. Afterwards, I felt much better.

Total cost for drinking in public: Two bottles of whiskey and a $273 ticket equals… oh, I’d say about $317.

My sister and I fell in love with a table. I went to Ikea a total of four times before finally managing–with Alex’s approval!–to spend $300 of my $500 deposit from my previous residence on this major purchase.

In ecstacy, I spent my day off painting the kitchen cabinets Field Poppy. It’s lovely. I managed to do that. But I didn’t manage to put together my $300 table without choosing the wrong screws to affix the table legs to the table top…and screwing the damn screws straight through the beautiful fake dark wood surface… In eight places.

Total cost for neglecting to notice the screw detailing in the Ikea instruction manual: $300 plus tax plus sooo many tears equals priceless.

But it’s cool. We’re going to find a miracle table runner to hide the scars. (As in, it’ll be a miracle if we find one we both like.) And the matching chairs are hella cute. It’s very domey. Look it up–fusion, Ikea.com–just picture it with many puncture wounds.

Sigh. Sometimes, I can’t help but to doubt my general ability in life.