Frugality 2023

Sleepless nights. Dysthymia. The “existential vacuum.” The “cranky” mood. There was no desire to dine at Panda Express® either. The personal situation is rapidly degenerating. Thus, the immediate solution called for a forced evening outing to Ala Moana Center late this afternoon.

A prime rib takeout dinner was procured at Lahaina Chicken in the Makai Market food court. A nice table was found to sit and enjoy the dinner, a reminder of the old days prior to the “super-duper corona” plan-demic. The prime rib certainly wasn’t high quality. Nonetheless, spending $20 on the latter “without batting an eyelash” was the ulterior motive.

Shopping at Target®, although unnecessary, was the next phase of “therapy.” A couple of packages of organic granola was procured for no apparent need, along with a banana and a pint of Ben & Jerry’s® Chocolate Fudge Brownie ice cream for dessert. The ice cream was on sale for $4 (in Waikiki, it is priced at over $10). The whole pint of ice cream, all 1,003 calories, was consumed. Needless to say, there was some dizziness experienced subsequently due to the glycemic overload.

Obviously, sitting down would not have been a good idea. So, an excursion was made to Longs®. More dental supplies were purchased with the Healthy Benefits+® card. So, no personal outlay was made.

The evening outing actually did nothing to cure the miserly ways. The spending spree was an actually “non-starter” because of the discounts and credits. Oh well. However, the outing was somewhat successful in offsetting the mindset of sequestration in the mausoleum at the “old folks home” in Waikiki.

Addendum: Mood and disposition have been extremely bad as some of the leading figures in the opposition are signaling that the Fascists will possibly stage another plan-demic in a month or so.

Miscellany: The switch to the costlier Visible+ plan has been somewhat mind-boggling. So far, the data usage this month has been less than 1GB per day, the lowest usage ever. On the other hand, the reliance on free wireless networks is increasing.