In this thread, our illustrious **Roland Deschain ** justifies never changing his car oil by saying:
This is bullshit. It’s not that he doesn’t have the money to get his oil changed; it’s just that he’d rather spend it on other things.
How do I know this?
In this thread, Mr. Deschain contemplates the idea of going to a “swing club.” Um, how much will that cost? I suspect that the amount of money spent in one night at a swing club could pay for a year’s worth of oil changes.
In this thread he admits to eating at restaurants. Roland, restaurants are a luxury, dude. Isn’t it funny how you can afford to eat at restaurants, but can’t afford to get the oil changed in your car?
In this thread he says he bought a brand new computer last year.
No. He’s pitting him for frivolously spending money on luxuries, whilst blowing off more important things - like changing his oil once in a while, and then claiming he doesn’t have the money. I’d call that a screwed-up priority hierachy, wouldn’t you? After all, how much will a siezed engine cost? C’mon, Miller, you’re smarter than that.
No, he’s pitting him for claiming to not have enough money to get his oil changed, when in reality he could have enough money, but chooses to spend it on frivolous things instead. Anyone who plays an online game for $5 a pop, yet hasn’t changed his oil in 100,000 miles, has an obvious problem with setting priorities.
Roland chooses to not maintain his car properly and justifies it by claiming poverty. He could easily afford to change his oil, but won’t admit to being irresponsible that way.
Crafter_Man, if you start from the premise that Roland Deschain is 100% troll and that everything he writes is made up of whole cloth soley for the entertainment value it provides to him when people work themselves into a lather about whatever blithering nonsense he’s going on about, then it all starts to make sense. There is no car. There is no strip club. Hell, it wouldn’t surprise me if there was no wife or child. Troll troll troll.
Perhaps. But given the content of his posts, it seems to be symptomatic of a general propensity for shirking responsibility. Today, it’s an oil change; who knows if tomorrow it won’t be a meal for his kids or something? Not saying he’d do that, but you get the idea.
Except that Roland stated in the linked thread that he wants this car to be a “permanent” car – one that he keeps indefinitely, and simply repairs when it breaks. Sounds like it’s reasonably important for him to have a car, and, bearing that in mind, a little bit of relatively cheap preventative maintenance is preferable to (and cheaper than) waiting for the inevitable total meltdown and then having it repaired.
An apple a day is worth a pound of cure . . . or something like that.
Perhaps. But one of my pet peeves is when a person claims they can’t afford something most people would consider “high-priority,” and then they turn around and spend money on entertainment and luxury items.
But do you really think it a good idea to open a pit thread over a pet peeve? Pit threads are for calling out other Dopers for being a jackass, not engaging in something that you identify as something that only bothers you. In my experience, it’s best to leave pet peeves at the log-in screen.
Well, I never said it was smart, it just didn’t seem particularly pittable. It’s his car, and his money. To you, having a car that runs well is high priority, so that’s what you spend your money on. To him, playing online games and having indiscriminate sex with random strangers is high priority, and he spends accordingly. Big fuckin’ deal.
The problem here is that just because “most people” consider something a high priority, and consider other things to be “luxury items” does not mean that everyone must thing the same way. Hell, i know people who don’t consider even owning a car to be a “high priority.” Are they being irresponsible with their money.
Also, when we talk about not being able to afford something, it doesn’t always literally mean that we don’t have enough money to puy that thing. What it often means is that we are not willing to spend what the item costs.
For example, given my current financial situation, i could say that i can’t afford to buy a $100 bottle of wine. Actually, i do have over $100, and spending that $100 on a bottle of wine would not leave me starving or unable to pay my rent. But when i’m saying that i can’t afford a $100 bottle of wine, what i’m saying is that the marginal cost of purchasing that wine is not worth its marginal value to me, and that the opportunity cost of purchasing that wine is too high for me to pay. This is a subjective judgment, and it’s the sort of economic calculation we make every day without even thinking about it.