BY: Vincent L. Hall
“But these last two dollars, I’m not gonna lose. One’s going for my bus fare.
Other one for the jukebox. to hear me some blues.” – Johnny Taylor, 1996
Yeah, I saw you break your last five-dollar bill for that cup of coffee at 7:11. The clerk gave you your change, and you figured two dollars wasn’t much, so you got a scratch off. You got nothing in return. How much money would you have in a year if you didn’t repeat this cycle?
Oh yeah. And I saw you in the gambling shack. I know a gambling shack when I see one. My dad was one of the owners and operators. He fed them and made them comfortable.
But today they got you in the back of that convenience store, sweating like hell. Instead of being back there working in the storeroom and making some money, you’re back there, unloading every bit of cash that you got from that hard-earned. You still workin’ for Mr. Charlie and he don’t give no money away.
The “authorities” will tell you that gambling is illegal in Texas, but you can’t tell it when you go through our neighborhood. Between the “one arm bandits” and the two arm bandits behind the cash register, you are squandering in minutes what it took you days and weeks to make.
Just for giggles, do you know that machine can be set?
These new, more sophisticated machines can be programmed to give a percentage payout. The owners I know allow the players to make 53%, rendering 47% to the owner. That basically means that, out of $100, a bunch of y’all are left to split $53. The owner doesn’t split his hundreds of thousands with anyone else.
You don’t wanna give Jesus 10% because you don’t trust the man of God who graces the church house. But you’ll give 47% to somebody you don’t even know and really even trust.
I’m here to tell you you’ve been had, hoodwinked, run amok, led astray. And it’s not getting any better.
That was some low-lying fruit. Now, let’s talk about what insurance companies do to you.
First of all, your insurance is way too high. Governor Abbott has his nose in everything but the price of insurance. You got a $ 6,000 car with full coverage, you get $1,000 worth of damage on it, and it gets “totaled.”
You have to try to find another $6000 car. Meanwhile, the salvage yards are overflowing with auto parts. You don’t get any part of those billions!
What you get is a return ticket to see that same damned salesman who screwed you last time.
Don’t even talk about how they rob you on the homeowners’ insurance side!
Cell phones are way too damned high. You’re paying almost $1,500 for that beautiful contraption that probably costs them less than $30 per unit at best. You never realize that the price went that high because they let you pay it out over 26 or 30 months.
You used to laugh at the people in your neighborhood who had Furniture from Rent-A-Center, but you’re just like them. A sucker that owns very little.
I tell you, you’ve been had. You’ve been sucker punched. You’ve been led down the gilded path. You’ve been taken to the cleaners. You’re a sucker, and everybody knows it. You’re so dumb that you don’t even know I’m talking to you.
Johnny Taylor left you a song 30 years ago to tell you what you could do with them last $2 and you still don’t get it.
Teach your dollars some “cents!”
You are down to your last two dollars, and at this rate you need to hear some blues!
A long-time Texas Metro News columnist, Dallas native Vincent L. Hall is an author, writer, award-winning writer, and a lifelong Drapetomaniac.
