Once I turned 50, I started venting my frustration at the irritations of life. It felt good, so I kept doing it. I call these brief and hopefully amusing verbal tantrums Old Man Rants. Let’s get to it:

Total Price?

How much are tickets?

$50

Ok I’ll take 2.

Great! That’ll be $150.

Really? Why?

There’s a $25 service charge per ticket.

So the tickets are really $75 apiece?

No they’re 50.

Ok then I’ll take 2, without the service fee.

You can’t do that sir.

Ah- so the tickets actually do cost $75 each?

Well, I guess you could look at it that way.

How the hell else would you expect a buyer to look at it?

I’m not sure sir.

This is my point!

Concert tickets, hotels, airlines with their baggage fees… all of this is nonsense should be stated up front to the customer so they can easily figure out exactly how much things are going to cost them.

What if you went to the grocery store, and all of the advertised prices were wholesale? When you went to check out, each product would ring up more expensive as the retailer added on their own “service fees”? Stores like that would go out of business in a hurry and with good reason.

Let’s cut the bullshit and just be upfront about how much stuff costs.

Ah! I feel better now, time to go chase some punks off my lawn.

Photo by energepic.com on Pexels.com

For more Old Man Rants, plus articles of a more serious and useful nature, visit Five O’Clock Shadow, an online magazine by Todd Fulginiti.