Dollars to Danishes

There's no getting around it: this place is expensive. And it's expensive in a really bizarre way. Like at the supermarket, there's a $2 box of cereal next to an equally tasty $9 one.

The thing is, $9 isn't an insane amount of money on its own... I mean, I've spent $9 before. In fact, $9 is totally okay to spend on a lot of things, like flourless chocolate tortes, Gap clearance jeans that happen to be in your size, and matinees of 3-D movies staring blue cats in love. There's nothing wrong with $9.

Furthermore, there's nothing wrong with boxes of cereal. I like cereal, it's delicious, keeps well, and if we are to believe John Harvey Kellogg, limits the body's baser passions. (It's true: I don't want to watch Jersey Shore after a bowl of corn flakes.)

Now, in the case of cereal, my choice is an easy one. I simply buy the $2 box and convince myself that I like it better. However, what am I to do when I don't have cheap alternatives and the benefit of self-persuasion?

For example, at a restaurant, a bottle of water was $4. I needed the water, and the cheaper alternative, sticking out my tongue to suck moisture out of the air, simply wasn't a viable option given the meal's timeframe. What did I do? I added value to the water.

$4 is a steal when you think that that very bottle of water used to be Tom Cruise's sweat in the volleyball scene from Top Gun. And who's to say that it wasn't? 24 years is a long time for water. Sure, that makes it kind of weird to drink, but there's no arguing that it's worth a whole heckuva lot more than $4.

Now, take the floss that we just bought for $5.25. Again, kind of a lot if it's just normal floss. However, this floss, when properly used, will actually teach me self-discipline and give me the tools I need to become a better writer. That's gotta be worth an extra $2.50 If you need it to be even more valuable, the woman who designed that floss has a kid who'll one day cure cancer. But only if that woman gets to keep her floss designing business. Definitely worth $.50. All that's left is the $2.25 that I'm already comfortable paying to fight off gum disease. Good deal.

Sometimes I have to get a little creative. Like sometimes there's a coffee that I didn't really want, but I had to order so I don't seem like the kind of guy who obsesses over whether to order an expensive cup of coffee. A small cup of black coffee can easily go for $4.25, so what's to be done? Simple. You just picture an evil ghost swooping around the coffeehouse saying to itself: "I'm going to possess the crap out of the first person I see who doesn't like coffee."

Maybe the ghost was killed by a tea drinker. Maybe the ghost finds the color brown very soothing. Fill in your own blanks. The point is, for all I know, that ghost is there, super pissed, and the only thing keeping me from sliming people and making clay pots with Demi Moore is my cup of joe.

Now that coffee's worth so much I can afford to buy two.