Alright, I understand that not everything in life can be free. We need to pay for things so that they can run smoothly and so that the people who are involved in them can be paid and survive. It's getting just a little bit absurd though folks and I'm so incredibly unimpressed right now.
The Massachusetts Toll System uses 70% of all of their earnings in order to pay the employees. Yup, only 30% of the money you give at a toll booth gets used for something other than the folks in the booths, the people in the offices, etc. So then why do tolls keep going up? Is it because the money is being improperly used? Is it greed? Is it poor distribution of the measly 30% that actually gets used for the roads? Is it staggering incompetence?
Dinner out should be an enjoyable thing but that too is getting ridiculous. Restaurant's charging fifteen to twenty dollars for an entree that costs five to make (at MOST) and isn't even particularly impressive. There are too many of these places to even list (cough, Alexander's, cough) but they are completely out of line. You should not be allowed to charge more than something is worth. Which leads me to one of the most disturbing of all. The Museum of Science in Boston.
Alright, MOS, first and foremost, I despise you officially. How dare you charge $18 admission for a museum which only changes one show regularly? All of the initial costs of setting up your business have been defrayed. You have literally hundreds, close to thousands of visitors every day so why does it need to be so much? I understand that upkeep is pricey and hiring all of those barely employable peons to not really do any work or teach about science is costly but this is truly unacceptable. How dare you do add ons. Four dollars and fifty cents extra to see the butterfly garden? Are you joking? Nine dollars to see the laser show? Those things should be free with the cost of admission. Have you no conscious, ripping folks off of their hard earned money like this? This is as criminal as charging $5 for a bottled water at Woodstock II, and you wonder why folks riot...
I get it, if people are willing to pay it then there should be no qualms about the price (case in point - Red Sox tickets are wildly expensive but there are enough fools willing to pay a weeks salary to buy them that they can be sold for that much). That doesn't make it right.
Have a little bit of self respect people and learn from my mistakes, these places are not worth it and the sooner we stop going to them the sooner they will either a) go out of business or b) lower their prices. I know at least one guy who will never give $50 to the Museum of Science again, and hopefully, after reading this, you might know someone too.