The Last Word on Water Heaters and Gift Cards

I can’t go on.

I know some of you have been enjoying my water heater saga, but I just can’t talk about it anymore. However, if you were wondering if I’m still dumping buckets of water every 90 minutes here’s a quick sum up. Feel free to skip down to more entertaining topics.

I got a plumber out to the house. He informs me that the small gas heater was discontinued in 2001. I had to switch to electric. After many phone calls, two fired electricians, and a lot of hair pulling, everything got fixed. I was left with a hefty bill and hot water. Could have been worse. Aaarrrghhh!!! Even typing these few words on the subject fills me with dread. I’m done. On to better things.

Among my many wonderful birthday gifts I was given two gift cards. Twenty-five bucks for Amazon.com and Twenty-five for Barnes and Noble.

Schoon Fact: I love me some gift cards.

Sure, tearing through bows and wrapping paper is awesome, but a gift card…

All Americans are united by a few simple truths. We like good food, we have way too many bills and we want shiny things. (We also all hate the Yankees, but that’s a blog for another day.) Those bills are a problem. They make us feel tremendously guiltly about buying Prime Rib or a Blu-Ray Player. More importantly buying these things on credit could add to our bills.

Guilt and Want. Might as well be apple pie.

But when you get a gift card it’s like the universe (or your Mother-In-Law) telling you: Hey, it’s okay. You can’t apply this Best Buy card to your Electric Bill so you might as well go buy yourself something.
With a gift card you’re forced to be selfish. Forced to think about what you want. It's a pretty sweet deal. That’s were I find myself now. What do I want? How can I get the most bang for my buck?

……

No, really! I’m asking here people!

Do I want that Dark Knight Blu-Ray I keep eyeing? Do I want to get a couple of Kurt Vonnegut’s classics to add to my collection? The latest volumes of The Walking Dead comic? Seriously, I’m really torn here. So, I’ll ask you people.

What should I buy? Any old B Movies or Sci-Fi flicks that I need to own? Anyone seen that disc of Pixar shorts? I’ve been wanting to see that.

And don’t say that I should buy something for you. Screw that! They’re my precious gift cards! Yes, my precious.

--Schoonaert