Complex Numbers

You Can't Count On Me

PROMPT January 14th

Write about a time when you made a wrong assumption. Did you realize your mistake right away, or did someone tell you later? What did you learn from your mistake?

Me? Make assumptions? Mistakes? What?!

Oh, fine, here's one.

Generally, I like to buy non-consumables exactly once. It saves money, which can better be used to buy beer and scotch. It really annoys me when something wears out and I have to buy a replacement; it's never the same and I'm out of sorts for weeks afterward because my routine has been threatened. The only exceptions are things like computers, which I'm aware have to be replaced every few years, if only to keep up with the latest gaming technology.

As a result, I never have anything to sell or to donate to Goodwill or whatever; by the time I'm done with something, it's hopeless.

I'm just explaining this because it's important to know my mindset going into these things.

So. Back when I was married, my wife brought home a new shower curtain. Okay, fine, even I could see that the old one had outlived its usefulness and was at that point of interest only to the most dedicated biology post-grads. But, determined to make this one last longer, I picked up one of those spray bottles of chemicals that, supposedly, when sprayed onto shower surfaces after a shower, help to keep it clean.

One day she caught me spraying the curtain with the tilex or whatever it's called. (Hey, we were married; shut up.) "Why are you doing that?"

"To make the curtain last longer."

"Don't bother with that. We'll just get another new curtain."

I ignored her and did it anyway. I'm not buying another damn shower curtain. Those things cost money!

It was only some years later, we'd separated for reasons that probably were unrelated to that argument, that, while in the shower and thinking "maybe it's time to get a new shower curtain; this one needs to go to the Institute for Xenobiology," that it hit me.

A shower curtain is like $12.

A bottle of that spray shit is like $5.

Even assuming that I spend half the spray shit, usefully, on long-lasting surfaces like tiles, it would take about five sprayers to break even. It would be cheaper to buy a shower curtain every couple of months than it would be to keep buying all that cleaning solution.

And then I thought, "Why didn't I think of that before?"

And then I thought, "Oh, shit... what else do I have a mental block about?"

I still don't know the answer to that last question. But it made me realize: we all have mental blocks about some things, and that, apparently, was one of mine: I was thinking of a shower curtain as a permanent fixture, and a bottle of shower cleaner as a consumable and, like I said, I only like to buy permanent fixtures once.

Since then, I've been trying to identify other brain failures on my part. I haven't found many, at least not of that amount of boneheadedness. But since I had one, I'm sure I have others; I just don't know what they are. And I don't have anyone in my life to tell me. My ex didn't explain her reasoning to me, perhaps not believing that I, a certified supergenius, could be so fucking stupid about something so basic.

That's the problem with cognitive biases: they're not obvious to the person who has them. Otherwise, they wouldn't be biases.

I got the last word in on the cleaner vs. curtain debate, of course; now that I'm single, I don't feel the need to spray down the shower. Though it does get a thorough cleaning once a month. Don't look at me like that; I hire a cleaning service for that sort of thing. It may not be cheaper than doing it myself, but it sure saves me a lot of hassle.

If you think you need to go
If you wanted to be free
There's one thing you need to know
And that's that you can't count on me
No you can't count on me