My Last Hundred Bucks: iTunes, Passover Brisket, and The New York Times

by Matt Langer

$100! It is a lot of money, and yet, it is also not a lot of money at all. Where did your last hundred bucks go, Matt Langer?

$5: At the iTunes store for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (HD) (the David Fincher one, not the subtitles one), and I’m still just as confused how I ended up watching it in the first place as I am by how much I REALLY LIKED IT.

$7: For Tom’s of Maine toothpaste (“Whole Care”).

$33: On three lbs. of Passover brisket from the Brooklyn Kitchen (it was second cut, because the first cut was sold out, because it was 4:30 in the afternoon before seder, because I am not very good at planning ahead with these things) (it was also inedible!) (like, genuinely inedible, as in: I took a single bite and promptly threw it all in the trash and then gave thanks to God that my dinner guest had cancelled and then also said thanks for the quick emotional turnaround from on the one hand feeling sad that I was having a solo seder to on the other feeling incredible relief that I hadn’t unwittingly forced such a culinary catastrophe on a close friend).

$30: At The Garden on fixings for kasha varnishkes, noodle kugel and other unleavened fare.

$12: Automatic payment for New York Times home delivery (Mon-Sun).

$7: To the All Taxi Management Co. on fare for the dozen or so blocks from Bedford and N. 11th to Franklin & Greenpoint because basically I’m a sloth but also I mean who doesn’t love the feeling of tapping a card — tapping! not even swiping!! — on those fancy new machines?

$2: On New York Times fourteenth floor cafeteria coffee (illy).

$2: ibid.

$2: “Non-Chase ATM fee”

Matt Langer works at The New York Times and gets angry about the Internet on Twitter. Photo: Flickr/Maggie Hoffman

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