Starving Artist Recipe Book

The BRECK EPIC is coming.

Looming.
Threatening.

An impenetrable fiscal fog, blackening the heart of mine August and spewing loss well into the fall.

To the most and unknowing, participation is entirely voluntary.
To the rest, it is anything but.

The Breck Epic is absolutely ineludible.
Like so much of a necessary evil.
Like crime(s) committed in the interest of some good.

Or.

Like Valentines Day.

Damned if you do.
Alone, guiltily jerking off in the basement if you don’t.

Despite some of mine greatest hopes to the contrary, airfare was not getting any the cheaper any the closer to the necessary departure.

Efforts to acquire more appropriately budgeted commutation were re-be-doubled.
Waived were insistences for aisle seats, inclusive drinks, double low-fat no-charge rewards – options devoid of a returning ticket and (even) driving were (partly) considered.

Enter.
A long and half forgotten AIRMILES account.

In the past and all previously, the prospect of earning a solitary mile for every hundred thousand I spend (not to mention the lacklustre baby blue card) have kept me from making anything more than nothing of this particular program.

Instead, I have frequented AEROPLAN.
A glamourous plan promising bourgeois decadence.
A plan where ‘members’ are showered with partner emails, limited offers and exclusive opportunities.
A plan where each and every transaction is a tick and plus in my, the members, favour.
A plan where account status starts at ‘prestige’ and betters over time.
A plan that is awarded tens of thousands (and then hundreds of miles more) on each and every penny spent.

By no less than a weeks end, your AEROPLAN balance is the envy of many.

The only flaw in this utopian system?
Redemption.

Tied to the Corporate Psycles American Express, my sole and solitary form of credit surviving separation, my AIRMILES balance has slowly crept upwards.

From the dozens, into the thousands.
As it would be, an entire flights worth.

One hundred eighty nine dollars and one cent.
THAT is the cost of FREE.

In other, more related, news:

I DO NOT HAVE A BIKE.

I need wheels.
I need a crank.

My (limited) efforts at enticing STANS or INDUSTRY NINE to provide ‘hoe-pricing‘ have fallen on deaf webs.

If anyone knows anyone.
If anyone that is someone is listening.

Tick Tock.