-224.36

That’s the balance in my checking account. Whoops.

Apparently you can not only continue using your debit card well past the $0.00 marker, you can do so with gleeful ignorance. For example: there are no Bank of Americas in Columbus, Ohio. I have been a member of Bank of America since I was 6 because my mom worked there and getting your kid a checking account at 6 is pretty sweet. So I like Bank of America, and, specifically, I like not getting charged $5.00 a pop for withdrawing my own money.

I unfortunately had to go to a scalper for the Ohio State-Wisconsin game. Long story short, I got cash back from a CVS pharmacy three separate times at$35 a go in order to get enough money to at least tempt a scalper right before kickoff. I thought nothing of it, though my internal accountant was nibbling his finger nails and ticking off great big cross hatches in the ledger of my soul.

Then my Blue Cross PPO insurance comes a calling, which is $96. I do the CVS trick a couple more times at Rite Aids and the like. I buy a sandwich. Etc.

So there I was at a Kalamazoo mall when I happen to wander past the first Bank of America ATM I’d seen in eight states. I attempt to withdraw $40 for the upcoming Ohio-Akron game ticket. The computer tells me I am exceeding my balance.

Klaxons are going off right now as my internal accountant triggers the self destruct and leaps to a noble death through the window of my now morally and financially bankrupt soul.

Long story short: no more booze. In retrospect booze has been my undoing for at least six years now. It jarred me from my path of academic excellence and the Rhodes Scholarship that undoubtedly awaited me as n superb inner tube waterpolo player. It sent me into rages and depressions. It gave me sweet, sweet hope. And it sucked the life blood out of my bank account on this road trip, a road trip I have budgeted for quite efficiently except for one very obvious exception, which, again, is booze. I love buying rounds for people who are nice to me. It’s my curse and my blessing. Well, to the people of the bars of the world I say No More!

Starting tomorrow, anyway.

As for what I’m gonna do, I’ve done it already: phoned home to momma. I am not a world traveling badass, able to live off the land and charm maidens with my Jon of Locksley roguishness. You need a merry band of men for that, and maybe green tights. I am now just a seriously poor vagrant with 1/5 a tank of gas and $24 in his wallet, which ought to be enough to buy a ticket to tonight’s Western Michigan-Central Michigan game.

So it’s back to Bush’s baked beans and water fountains. Yum.