Costly unforced error of a momentary wrong button-push (after deliberately pausing to think it through) during afternoon setup. <$20, but on this budget, a Jackson is a non-insignificant matter. I have rued for hours, days and weeks missing a classical concert or theatre show that I really wanted to witness, because the tariff was in the neighborhood of $20.
In fairness, after a very grueling three day journey. At one point in the afternoon, I simply sort of slumped over. I'd like to think that I made a conscious and deliberate choice to do so, but I'm not entirely sure about that.
It's really the sort of world in which if you don't have private money, your life is made so difficult that having private money is thought to be a necessity. Of course, if everyone had private money, the economy couldn't function, as most people with sufficient means simply wouldn't work. With each passing day, Hoover's "square deal" seems a better desideratum.
The adventures in Balkan groceries continue. Not nearly as bad as the country to the south, in which I had to forcibly extricate myself from what seemed to be a criminal conspiracy after trying to purchase milk and eggs at the most reputable store in the town -- here, just many missing prices, shriveled vegetables, and one or two rude folks, though most are very nice and helpful. It's not Germany, and that's perhaps the problem -- being non-German becomes an act of cultural self-definition. But the Japanese, the Jedi, and the folks on the planet Vulcan all run very efficient supermarkets. There's something to be said for having models of virtue that are more distant.