I Sold My Integrity for 63 Cents
This is NOT what we may think!
We all find ourselves in a jam occasionally, but this time deeply bothered me.
No change
Before COVID, didn’t we all keep bits of cash in our cars? We’d keep a couple of dollars, some quarters, and a zillion pennies — not anymore. Everything we do is PayPal, Stripe, a credit or debit card transaction. Cash, as legal tender, has become verboten, and I’m all in. I never use cash, but sometimes, life interferes.
Recently, I needed some change, 63¢ to be exact. This pittance forced me into a legal dilemma, one that caused me to sell my integrity. Yes, I am ashamed. I sold my pride, integrity, and information. The price I charged was four bits, a dime, and three pennies; I was raised better.
The Problem
Now you may be wondering what I could do with my integrity that would be worth exactly $0.63. That’s a good question. And that’s the question I was asking myself. I’m not a good-looking guy, but I think I’m worth more than that. Right?
Life is funny in some ways, not ha-ha funny, but an ironic kind of funny. What I wanted to do was to take advantage of a sale at a fast-food company. When I began this thought process, I started making decisions that I would never usually make; it was like some other person was taking over. I didn’t want to do the things this person was doing, but I wanted the same outcome from what they were doing.
The Chasm
It was confusing and exhilarating and oh-so embarrassing, all at the same time. No normal person would ever admit that they did what I did. I wouldn’t be spilling my guts, but I hope to make another $0.63 with this article.
So, there I was. It was a dark and windy night, and I was hungry; I needed food, and I needed it now. It was a sandwich I craved, and it was on sale. Their restaurant was nearby. The stars were aligned. I was prepared to go to battle, so to speak, against a windmill. However, I could not battle the beast because the chasm that lay before me was a gap of $0.63. So, I did what my mother never thought I’d do.
I actually did it in the parking lot. I know Paul McCartney of The Beatles® wrote the little ditty “Why Don’t We Do It in The Road,” well I did it in the parking lot. Let me say I did not do what Paul sang about. Mine was far worse.
My Decision
I was sitting in the parking lot, in my car, in line at a major fast-food chain, and they had a deal where I could buy one of their premium burgers for 63¢. To my merit, I didn’t have an account with their mobile app. But that was the crux of the problem upon which I sat.
I had to quickly log into their app and get my secret drive-thru decoder code before I heard those words, “Be sure to drink your Ovaltine®”…scratch that…“How may I help you?”
To get my sandwich, I faced two choices, both distasteful. I could log in from my Google account or my Facebook account — yes, I still have a Facebook account. My life is like a cornucopia of shame — Facebook®, Instagram®, Snapchat®! So many accounts, so little time!
A Splash in a Data Lake
I knew my decision would soon become harvested data by big tech. My purchase of that burger would instantly become a transaction. No doubt, I was already sitting in a JSON file, waiting to be uploaded to some nefarious shell corporation that would scrub off my data’s trail to make it seem that it innocently came from one of the “acceptable” tech giant’s data lakes.
When I pressed the button on my mobile phone, I was sure that my notifications would ring off their hooks — an arcane reference to electronically equivalent but patent-distanced ringers of landline phones. To whom would you choose if you were selling your integrity? I chose Facebook.
Why Facebook?
You may be wondering what would compel anyone to use Facebook. No doubt, Facebook would be eating up my data before I got out of the parking lot.
This is just my unsubstantiated, subjective opinion as part of this satirical article intended to demean no other person or entity but me. No comments are intended to reflect negatively on any companies or inanimate objects either now, in the past, or at any time in the future.
It came down to this. If I sold my integrity for 63 cents, the moment the cash register total came up, Facebook would have already uploaded my transaction. The truth is that their data scientists, working with clean data from 3rd party providers, would be able to tie my hamburger back to me even if I’d used cash.
If I had chosen Google®, they would have held a celebration to mark the five billionth person on the planet who chose Google as their data lake of choice. Also, at five billion, I think Google would have instantly created a diverse, multi-disciplinary team to develop a new worldwide service to estimate the time between when their login is used and when fast food is ordered. For me, that would have been 30 seconds.
Can’t be Undone
Some things you do in life just can’t be undone — you can’t unsee your naked mother-in-law. My experience was one of those. So, yes, I sold my integrity to Facebook for 63¢. I’m ashamed, embarrassed, and surprised at the person inside me who became so energized by getting this deal that they compelled me to sell my integrity in a parking lot for a burger that was gone in three minutes.
I did it, but I’m open about it. I have not hidden it like so many others do. What about you? Have you ever sold your integrity? I’m talking about a despicable thing like using PayPal® or Stripe® to buy PPV to watch a WWE wrestling event. I’m eager to find out. Thanks for reading this, and I hope you forgive me.
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