-When I stepped down from the podium after delivering a speech at my college graduation, I spotted my parents in the crowd.  I saw the huge smile on my mom’s face and tears coming from my dad’s eyes, and that’s when I knew it was all over.  They would never give me money ever again.  In the weeks that followed, financial independence was thrust upon me.  Credit cards were cut in half, bank accounts were closed, and (gasp!) I even started a 401k, all under the watchful eye and satisfied grin of my father.  Luckily, my cushy Wall Street job helped pay the bills at first.  However, since leaving my job to pursue comedy full-time, I have managed to maintain my gluttonous lifestyle without returning, hat in hand, to my parents.  A wallet full of singles can go surprisingly far in this fair city.  And that, my friends, is the power of ones.

-One thing I never do is budget.  It’s overrated.  Now don’t get me wrong, I have a pretty good idea of what I spend every week, but I have friends that write down every single thing they purchase in an organized spreadsheet.  I did that for a month once.  At the end of the month I calculated that I spent 65% of my money on alcohol, 30% on food and 5% on new heads for my electric toothbrush.  Damn you Oral-B!

-Now that I don’t have a “real” job, my wallet feels kind of empty.  Gone are all those ID cards and lunch cards from the office.  My driver’s license and Amex were getting lonely in the front, so I promoted my CVS and health insurance cards from the inside pocket to the outside slits, leaving my Blockbuster card and gym ID behind.  They were pissed but I told them laminated plastic just can’t cut it in the big leagues.

-ATM fees pose a conundrum for many.  “Wait a minute, I have to pay money just to get money?”  My buddy Claudio is so morally opposed to paying ATM fees that whenever he needs cash he hops on the subway to his bank downtown.  Cost of a one-way subway fare?  $1.50.  ATM fee he is trying to avoid?  $1.50.  Having a friend that’s a fucking idiot?  Priceless.

-The worst is paying for something then later realizing you didn’t have to.  I went to the movies last night, paid ten bucks for a ticket, but when I went to the theater, the guy ripping the tickets wasn’t there!  I just walked right in.  At first it didn’t bother me, but when I looked at the ticket in my hand, mocking me with its intact stub, I was totally distraught.  That’s a whole Amstel Light down the drain!

-I spend way too much money on food.  I can’t help it – I can’t cook and I’m lazy so I order in or take out for every meal.  This wouldn’t be too much of a problem if the restaurants in this city weren’t so damn expensive.  When did everything become pan-Asian, Asian-fusion, or tapas?  What the fuck happened to cheeseburgers?

-Speaking of take-out for a moment, some places really need to employ a spellchecker for their menus.  What always freaks me out is the misplacement of quotation marks at Chinese restaurants.  What does “lunch” special mean?  Why is “lunch” in quotes?  I can understand if maybe “special” was in quotes, but “lunch”?  Fuck it, this place is weird, I’m getting tapas instead.

-I’ve been saying that if my career as a comedian doesn’t work out, I’d want to be a bracketologist, like those guys on ESPN.com.  Now that’s the life, just filling out NCAA Tournament brackets all day long.  In order to test my mettle, I entered the ESPN pool online, hoping to walk away with a cool $10,000 prize.  I just checked and I’m in 557,000th place.  So anyway, a guy walks into a bar and…

-I just made my monthly student loan payment.  I don’t know, for me the idea of paying for college long after I’ve graduated is just plain strange.  Every time I make a payment I think of a class I overslept or a paper I botched.  Why do I have to pay full-price if I only went to class half the time?

-I do all my banking and pay all my bills online.  The only thing I have to write a check for is my exorbitantly high rent.  Whenever I write a check I am faced with the horrifying fact that I have no idea how to write in script anymore.  I’m making up loops as I go along, a squiggle here, a squiggle there.  And there you have it folks, I have an Ivy League education but I failed cursive.

-I love when I buy something and it comes to like $5.01.  There’s always that awkward silence after you pay with a ten-dollar bill when you’re waiting for the cashier to tell you to forget about the one cent.  You’re vainly searching your pockets for change, you’re looking for that little penny jar next to the register, you do that little under-your-breath snicker, and finally the cashier gives you five bucks back and all is good in the world once again.

-I always get nervous when expensive items are priced at round numbers.  Like when you’re in the electronics store and you ask how much a DVD player is and they’re like, “This model is $200.”  You’re like, “Um…what?  You mean $199.95?”  “No sir, it’s $200 even.”  And you say to your friend, “I don’t like the sound of that.  Way too even.  Let’s get the hell out of here!”

-Why in the world does stuff you order over the phone still take six to eight weeks for delivery?  Six to eight weeks?  I can buy shit online that gets here in an hour.  How are you shipping it, Pony Express?

-Some places, especially drugstores, give you way too much buying information.  My roommate Brian and I were in CVS the other day buying toilet paper.  Since we were looking for maximum comfort at minimum cost, we stood there for fifteen minutes calculating and arguing over price per ply, double roll versus single roll, quilted, scented, on sale, 33% more free, family size, etc.  In the end, we just bought the package with the cutest baby on the front.

-There are some things that I spend money on that some people would find absurd.  For instance, I never do my own laundry.  Sorry, just not my thing.  My real problem is not that I can’t do laundry, but that I can’t fold.  I don’t know how you people do it.  When I’m done folding I can’t even tell my underwear and t-shirts apart.  Anyway, for those of you who send your laundry out like me, let me ask you one question – when you get your laundry bag back, is the drawstring tied in the tightest knot ever?  Who do they have doing the laundry down there, Boy Scouts?

-Quote of the Month.  This month’s quote goes to my trusty roommate who I thought spoke volumes about the twentysomething struggle to simultaneously stay in shape while working long hours to earn lots of money and then blow it all on clothes.  “Karo,” Brian said to me the other day, exasperated, “You know what would make me completely happy?  If I could just weigh less than my jeans cost.”  Preach on friend, preach on!

-Luckily, Brian and I grew up on Long Island, where children are taught responsibility by being left at the mall to fend for themselves.  Who can forget their first experiences at the mall?  The candy stores, the silk-screened t-shirt stands, the forbidden lingerie shops and, of course, that fateful day when you found out that Banana Republic and Old Navy are actually the same company.  Oh how young and naive I was…

-I hadn’t been to a mall in a while but when I went last month I was perplexed.  I guess shopping is a more strenuous activity than it used to be and you can really work up a sweat.  At least that’s the only conclusion I could come to as to why all the guys there were wearing wristbands.  Oh wait, is that cool now?

-I’ve decided that I want to be ensconced in Burberry.  That’s right.  Burberry shoes, Burberry socks, Burberry underwear, Burberry pants, Burberry shirt, Burberry jacket, Burberry hat.  I’ll bathe with Burberry soap and cook with Burberry butter and wear Burberry-colored contact lenses.  And even if I manage to do all that, I still won’t be able to compete with people I see on Fifth Avenue every day.  Enough with the fucking Burberry already!  You know, when I was a little baby I had Burberry pajamas.  Except back then we called it plaid.

-In a Burberry-clad city where even the Mayor is a billionaire, a lot of people have a skewed outlook on money.  But while the rich are getting richer, the twentysomething crowd is marked by inertia.  Whether via Wall Street or comedy or bracketology, the money we earn is quickly consumed by ATM fees, student loan payments, toilet paper, and tapas, leaving us with just a few crinkled dollars for a domestic draft beer.  They say money can’t buy happiness, but I spent all mine and I couldn’t be happier!

-As always, here are some random things I’ve been ruminating about…

-I think the bathroom is a time warp.  When you go to the bathroom, you never really think about how long you’ve been in there.  But when you come out and your friend is waiting there, he always says either, “Wow, you went and came back that fast?” or the ever-popular “What, did you fall in?”  Just once I’d like to come out of the bathroom and have my friend say, “Karo, that took exactly the amount time I thought it would.”

-I think it’s funny when sluts get boyfriends.  You know, you’ll be sitting around with your buddies and someone will say, “You know that chick Lisa Johnson?”  And everyone will nod and laugh.  “I heard she’s dating that guy Jack from my office.”  Then everyone will think to themselves, “Wow, I wonder if he knows that she fucked…everybody.”

-I love when you offer someone a sip of soda and they lift up the lid slightly and drink out of the cup instead of through the straw.  What, you don’t think germs can swim?

-You know what I would like to see?  A television commercial that does not say at the bottom in small print “Professional on closed course.  Do not attempt.”  How dumb can we be?  There’s even a disclaimer in the latest IHOP ad.  They sell fucking pancakes.  Is nothing sacred anymore?

-Talk about an over-litigious society.  I’m not making this up – the back of the air freshener in my bathroom says, “Keep out of reach of children and teens.”  And teens?  Teens?  “Listen Jimmy, I know you’re nineteen and old enough to drive, join the army, and go to college, but I don’t want you touching that Glade.  Potpourri can be dangerous you know!”

-Sometimes I think that I think too much.  Here are my latest ponderings.  Has my doorman ever been upstairs in my building?  Why do I close and lock the bathroom door when I’m alone in my apartment?  Why is my airline “e-ticket” printed on a piece of paper?  What ever happened to Coolio?  Why is my cable modem slower than dial-up?  Why does everything you cook in the George Foreman grill smell the same?  What the hell are those crunchy circular vegetable discs that come in Chinese food?  Why are haircuts always so traumatic for girls?  Why bother playing two-hand touch football when it always turns into tackle anyway?  Why do different shapes of pasta taste differently?  What exactly does a subwoofer actually do?  Why does just putting a band-aid on a cut make it feel better?  Are there any movies out that don’t have Colin Farrell in it?  Why do I still get nervous around cops when I’m drunk even though I haven’t done anything wrong?  How is it possible for concerts and sporting events to sell out in only two minutes?  And, of course, why do all weathermen and dentists have funny nicknames like Dr. G?

-I have one good reason why the war in Iraq must stop immediately: so we don’t have to listen to Aaron Brown every night on CNN.  I’ve never heard anyone say “um” more than this guy.  The fool stutters more than a dyslexic at a spelling bee.  “Um, we’re, uh, going to go, um, to the, uh, Pentagon now, um to…”  And, I already switched to NBC.

-Many people are confounded by the wave of anti-Americanism that is sweeping the world.  I’m not really too surprised.  Listen to the radio or watch TV.  Kid Rock is singing country music, Joe Millionaire is selling KFC, and Stifler is in a kung-fu movie.  Hell, I hate us too!

-When you go to take a shower, and there’s no hot water, don’t you think to yourself, “Of all the times I’ve ever bathed in my entire life, I’ve never wanted hot water more than I do right now?”

-A little trick I use to find out if a chick is interested in me is to listen very carefully to what she says when you are talking to her on the phone, and someone on her end asks who she’s talking to.  It’s all girl code.  If she says “a friend of mine” without mentioning you by name, that’s not a good sign.  If she says “my friend Karo” that’s usually a positive sign.  If she says  “oh just a wrong number,” I’d say you’re not doing too well.

-I love listening to my girl friends talk about the new guy they are hooking up with.  They’ll be like, “Oh my God, this boy is so cute.  We talk on the phone for like four hours every night!”  What?  Who the fuck has time to talk on the phone for that long?  And who has that much to say?  Guys, whoever is out there doing this, please stop.  You’re ruining everything for the rest of us.

-I am always introducing people.  As you know from reading this column, I detest awkward moments – and there is nothing more awkward then not being introduced.  I hate it when, by coincidence, I introduce two people that already know each other.  They always make such a sarcastic show of it: “Do I know Erica?  DO I know Erica?  Well very nice to meet you Erica!  Karo, of course I know Erica, we went to school together!”  Oh, sorry for being polite and thanks for making me feel so…well, awkward.

-It boggles my mind when a magazine reviews something using a star system but then doesn’t tell you how many stars it’s out of.

-Another awkward moment: when you are walking down the street and the only other person on the sidewalk is walking toward you.  I never know whether to look at them or pretend not to look at them or really not look at them but inevitably at about ten feet you both look up, make eye contact, quickly avert your eyes, speed up, and pass each other.

-Here’s a new list of people that irk, annoy, or otherwise piss me off.  People who wear cell phone earpieces so big it looks like they’re working for air traffic control.  People who scrape half the cream cheese off the bagel before they eat it.  People born in Manhattan who never learned to drive.  People who peel the label off their beer bottle while drinking.  People who bring cheap beer to parties then drink the expensive stuff that other people brought.  People who use the abbreviations “ttyl,” “lol,” “btw,” or “omg” in their emails.  People who don’t save their documents regularly and lose all their work every time their computer crashes.  People who stand in the middle of the escalator without leaving a lane for passing.  People who forget their glasses when they go to the movies.  People who use an initial for their first name.  People who fill up their water bottle at the water fountain at the gym while ten sweaty dehydrated people are dying in line behind them.  People who use the word “queue” instead of “line.”  People who lock their cell phones in the gym locker room but leave them on, forcing everyone to listen to their stupid “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” ring tone fifteen times.  People who sing really loudly to themselves while walking down the street.  People who leave the crust over.  And, the all-time worst, people who give you their fist instead of a handshake.

-As much as I make fun of people, there are also a lot of people I feel bad for.  Like the models who pose for the ads in the subway and then have penises drawn all over their faces.  I feel bad for them.  And what about the guy who has to drive the blimp over a football game at a domed stadium?  That must suck.  Do you think he has a little TV up there so he can watch the game?  These things keep me up at night.

-The other night I went to a psychedelic trance show.  As you can imagine, that’s not really my scene, but one of my boys is a DJ and this was his first big show, so I went out to support him.  It was actually pretty cool.  The place was bumping, the music was much better than I expected, and the crowd was into it.  I will tell you this much, though, I was definitely the only person there wearing Banana Republic socks.

-The day after the rave I went to the Matisse/Picasso exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art.  Again, not really my scene (what the hell is my scene?) but my friend really wanted to go so I tagged along.  Besides, I could use some culture.  It was actually pretty cool as well, though the crowd couldn’t have been more different than the rave crowd.  I think for some reason if you like art you have to either wear glasses, use a cane, wear bad sweaters, or carry a handkerchief.

-I wish med school kids wouldn’t show off so much.  The other day a bunch of my friends were hanging out and someone farted.  We all laughed but then the med student of the bunch said, “Guys, that was just a natural mixture of carbon dioxide, formed from chemical reactions between stomach acid and intestinal fluid, as well as hydrogen and methane.”  Well that kind of took the fun out of it.

-I love watching people dab the top of a slice of pizza with a napkin to try to soak up some of the grease.  Good job, big guy.  Now it’s just like eating a rice cake.

-And, finally, I recently realized how little I actually use my kitchen.  Because we both always eat out, the only thing resembling food that me and my roommate ever keep in the apartment is a Brita pitcher.  The other day I went into the refrigerator to pour myself a glass of water and I noticed that there was some turkey in a package on the shelf under the Brita.  I was pretty pissed off.  When Brian came home I was like, “I can’t believe you’re hiding food from me, I was starving the other day and I didn’t think there was anything to eat!”  Brian just stood there for a moment, looked at me quizzically, and then said, “So let me get this straight Karo, are you actually accusing me of hiding food from you… in the refrigerator?”  Fuck me.

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