The Bad Decision Index

Everyone has some sort of barometer for determining when a night may have gotten out of control, when you maybe should have called it a night and not tried to hit on the police officer to avoid a night in the drunk tank. My metric is entirely fact based and documented, as it turns out, courtesy of transaction tags from American Express.

In case you're not familiar, the lovely people at American Express break down your charges into various categories like transportation, groceries, dining out, entertainment, et al. so that you can better track your annual expenses. They also give you the option to add your own tags to transaction, so you can define what you spend in your terms. Of my many customized tags, the one I like to use least often is "Bad Decisions"

While your bad decision spectrum may put Stay Home and Play Checkers on one side and Try to Break Into the Organization of American States¹ on the other, mine are generally viewed in terms of economic impact. You know why? Because sometimes, at 3:00am, it genuinely is a good idea to wander off into northern Virginia, and inform the gang that you are by a bunch of trees and please come get you². Sometimes great things come of this.

Here's what I consider a bad decision. Buying an excruciating amount of shots, drinks, beers, and other consumables for me and my 50 closest friends at the bar. Because here's the thing, once you get the ball rolling, there's really no stopping it³. By the time the house lights come on, I'm the bartender's best friend, I've gotten us both drunk (the bartender too, most likely), and even with the fuzzy math that generally goes into calculation of my tab I'm still walking out the door for like $200. Was it a special occasion? Maybe, probably not. Generally it was a random Thursday night where somebody posed the seemingly innocuous question, "Shots?"

The amazing thing about my bad decision index is that it's largely independent of frequency, intensity, and scope. I've had billing periods where I go out hard and billing periods where I try to restrain myself, and after the dust settles, the Bad Decision Meter is remarkably consistent. I can't explain it. I've almost come to view it as a fixed cost.

The one strangely constant thing is that the legibility of the handwriting on my copy of the receipt (I always manage to take it) is inversely proportional to the percentage tip I leave.

Is this rational? Does this make sense? Of course not. But I have come to terms that one of my base instincts is the desire to make my friends happy. And as it turns out, when I'm drunk, making you happy is performed by getting us both drunker.

Until tomorrow, I leave you with this pearl of wisdom:

A man, a plan, a canal, Panama!<sup>4

1</sup> You know who you are.
² Same guy
<sup>3

4</sup> It's a palindrome⁵, stupid.
⁵ Have you ever wondered why palindrome isn't a palindrome? So many other literary devices intimate their definition in the pronunciation, like onomatopoeia or alliteration.