$76 + ?

I don't pay $76 a month to not be able to ride the subway.
This morning when I swiped my monthly metro card I got the familiar "please swipe again." Upon doing so I got the message "just used." For those of you who don't live in NYC, that means you can't use your card for the next 18 minutes, so I had to spend $2 to get a one trip metro card. Now I don't think there's some grand conspiracy to dupe people of $2 every now and then. But this isn't the first time it's happened. Let's say it happens to 1% of all riders. That's $2 extra from 80,000 people or $160,000 a day; $4, 800,000 a month; $58 Million a year (do you like how I just used completely made up numbers to make my point?)
The point is that this has to happen to many a people everyday but who is actually going to take time to write the MTA when they aren't even sure they will get their $2 back. Even though this happens all the time no one will ever be able to challenge it.

In other news, my mom bought me this little umbrella for Christmas which contracts down to the size of about two cigarette packs on top of each other. Convenient? Yes. Durable? No. One strong wind gust and this thing will be done for. Nice while it lasts though.