Once again, the itch to travel hit me. Let me be frank and call it an addiction, as I long ago surpassed the desire for casual, occasional trips.
Like a fish out of water, I flop around uncomfortably if left to my own devices in one locale for too long.
With incentives to get the frightened and disconcerted traveling public to, well, travel, I figure this is the most opportune moment to feed my habit.
A flight to Europe costing less than $500? The fares advertised by the airlines are remarkably attractive. I started to pack.
I never finished. By the time you factor in the immigration fee, custom fee, landing fee, airport improvement fee, segment fee and security fee, you have passed the $600 mark with ease. I had to think of something else.
I needed wheels and checked the equally-attractive car rental rates. $25.99 and the open roads are mine. Lest I forget the sales tax, use tax, concession fee, license fee, vehicle recovery fee and shuttle fee. These surcharges quickly add up to more than 50 per cent. I had to think of something else.
How about a nice hotel closer to home? There too the deals abound. But what the hoteliers knock off the rack rate -a nebulous and obscure concept in itself- they recover in parking, health club or resort fees. In addition, of course, to the state sales tax, the transient occupancy tax and the various fees voters have tacked on when they thought it would be a good idea to (your choice goes here, think creek clean-up in Santa Barbara, new stadiums in other cities) but not to pay for it themselves. I had to think of something else.
Time to rediscover this fair city. I could enjoy an irresistible dinner, and try not to resist the quasi-mandatory 22.75 per cent bump up, since we can’t seem to devise all-inclusive prices. At least the menus have prices. In many eateries, the cost of cocktails, beer, dessert and pastries is often casually omitted. Are we beyond price? Or does someone, somewhere, hope that we are so embarrassed to ask about the price that we will silently pay?
I thought about catching a concert, but decided against it when I saw another wave of convenience, credit card, facility, improvement, handling and reservation fees approach. I had to think of something else.
So I got into my car and drove to the gas station and treated myself to a gallon of high-octane gasoline, for $1.999. I don’t think it was the vapors, but I got a sudden rush to my head. One dollar, ninety-nine and nine-tenth of a cent? Whose idea is this? I can’t wait to see those fraction-of-a-penny coins.
Is it at all conceivable to expect straightforward pricing, and in a currency that actually exists? Other than our northern neighbor, the rest of the world has managed to include sales taxes and gratuities in the price of a product or service. Is this an unreasonable proposition? For a culture so devoted to things financial, we are strangely prudish when it comes to truth-in-pricing.
Let us not raise taxes, God forbid. Instead, we have opened the floodgates of fees and surcharges really wide. But we are not, I repeat, raising taxes and there is no inflation either.
Are we buying the subterfuge? Are we that gullible? I hope there is something redemptory behind this deception.
I can’t think of anything else.