The Man

Only once have I been into a Western Union -- accompanying another student who was getting money orders. I don't ever remember getting a money order myself, but I do remember people who owed me money paying me with them.

I always wondered why don't they just pay with cash? Not that I cared either way, but it seemed to me that there musta been fees associated with these money orders, lost in the transaction.

Today there are more payday loan stores than Starbucks. I mention this as I just discovered a Check Into Cash not two miles away here in the beautiful Laguna sub-suburb of Elk Grove, while I pass three on my bicycle ride into Sacramento along Franklin/Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvds. I suppose it's a good thing to have this store available to us Elk Grovians, for those unfortunate times when unexpected events or bookkeeping errors cause excessive bank fees and overdraft charges to accrue. Better to get a payday loan to avoid those.

That paying ~$20 for a $200 two-week loan is somewhere on the order of 400% APR makes no never mind to us -- at least we avoided that $39 overdraft fee from Wells Fargo! We pulled the wool over The Man!

Speaking of The Man -- my brother-in-law once called me The Man. He said I didn't mean to be, I just was. Because I'm white and I work for the electric utility, I'm Part of The Man. Yes. I admit it. I've got my boot on the neck of the working brown man, who's only tryin' to pay his bills, and I'm out there makin' it harder for them. Rates are only going up, up up! What, to pay my bloated salary? Of course! I'm The Man.

And obviously every owner of a Check Into Cash franchise must also be, too.