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People Explain Which Items Are Unnecessarily Expensive For No Reason

People Explain Which Items Are Unnecessarily Expensive For No Reason
Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

The world at large is entirely too expensive. Why is gas more than a monthly mortgage payment?

There is a scene in one of my all-time favorite shows (Arrested Development) where one of the greatest characters ever created (Lucille Bluth) says to her son Michael (Justin Bateman)... "It's one banana, Michael. What could it cost? $10?"

When the show aired it was an absurdly brilliant line.

In 2021? $10? Could be!

Redditor u/OutrageousSea5212 wanted to compare notes on what we've all paid way too much money for, by asking:

What's something that's unnecessarily expensive?

Rent. Specifically rent in New York and California. Sometimes for a good laugh, while I'm on a wine date with myself, I look at rent prices online. And I guffaw.

Numbers

Teacher Appreciation School GIF by Texas Instruments Education Giphy

"Graphing calculators. They've been using the same model for 20+ years (17 if we're talking a TI-84), and the prices are ridiculous."

- bookwing812

Fees Away

"Ticketmaster's service fees."

"Wow, by far my most popular comment ever! Just wanted to edit to say that if you're able, always order your tickets by calling or visiting the performance venue directly. You can avoid a ton of the fees you would otherwise be charged, and the customer service is nearly always several grades better than what you'll get with a faceless entity that really doesn't care about you at all."

- Boy11jb

A Cheaper Farewell

"Funerals."

- whrebxtch

"Costo sells coffins btw (online), and they're much cheaper than what the funeral home is selling them for."

"Edit: this is one of those Good Guy Costco things they do, similar to not raising the prices of their food. AFAIK they think it's a rip off what funeral homes charge, and so they offer them online with shipping at a price much, much lower than what funeral homes charge."

"BTW, if you've not had to pick a casket yourself, let me tell you: a lot of funeral home's cheapest casket is literally cardboard with fake wood vinyl on the side. It's there as the "cheap" option so that you pick the one above it (which is more money, of course.)"

- ihahp

Airport Thievery

"Vending machines on the secure side of airports. You can't bring the $2 coke you bought within line of sight of the checkpoint through because it could be a bomb. You can buy another one once you get past security however! But now it's $6. The machines are literally within sight of each other."

- intashu

Ridiculous...

GIF by HULU Giphy

"Chemotherapy. My infusions are $18k apiece. I'm lucky that it's not for cancer and I only get it twice a year and I have insurance but like… wtf."

- theniwokesoftly

Don't even get me started about the prices of medical care in this country. It's criminal.

Color Coded

printer GIF Giphy

"Printer ink."

- fleurdelis_1978

"Epson Eco-Tank ET3760 changed our lives…..not the world's best color printer but it gets the job done."

- beretta01

People Describe Their Best Chance Encounters | George Takei’s Oh Myyy

Flying Receipts

"Emergency medi-flight. I understand the cost of fuel, wear and tear on the helicopter, as well as the pilot and medical staff. But $5,000 a mile? My ambulance ride to the heliport and ensuing helicopter ride ended up about $250,000."

- Dudebutdrugs

"That's because the hospitals know that they can overcharge insurance because they'll knock it down. If you ask for an itemized bill for your hospital stay, you can fight tooth and nail and they'll eventually be reasonable. They just do it cause they know they can get away with it via insurance companies."

- troublingarcher7

Keep me in the Dark

"Lamps. I work in manufacturing and have a good idea of how much stuff like that would cost to manufacture, and I couldn't believe how obnoxiously expensive light fixtures were when I bought some new lamps given how shoddy even moderately high end ones are built. Yet IKEA sells something made from probably the same factory for $10."

- dragoneye

Knowledge is Pricey

"I'm shocked I haven't seen college textbooks. That crap is incredibly overpriced here in the US."

- ultravioletblueberry

"I haven't thought of those in a few years but I remember every semester jumping through hoops trying to weasel my way out of paying full price for textbooks. And the people who have replied must not have been in school when ONLINE ACCESS CODES hit the scene."

"Now every single class has some reason to charge you 120 dollars so you can do your homework. So sure you bought the 4th edition instead of the 5th and saved 90 bucks. But now you have to buy the online code and pay 120 anyways. That crap should be criminal."

- jarredshere

A Girl's Bestie

"The diamond market is such a racket that for a period of years during the late 1990s and early 2000s, Debeers executives were unable to set foot on US soil because they would have been arrested by the DOJ for price fixing. The crooked company eventually agreed to plead guilty and paid over $300 million in fines and settlements. The cost of doing "business". - https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48041-2004Jul13.html"

- bishpa

Stay Home

Rob Gronkowski Football GIF by Tampa Bay Buccaneers Giphy

"Any food or beverage sold at a sporting event or concert. And the parking as well."

- Actuaryba

I do my best to pregame with sporting and concert events. Otherwise, you go broke. Last time I bought a round at an arena event I purchased two WELL double vodka/sodas and one large Diet Coke... $94. Should've got a small diet.

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People Share The Best Little-Known Movie Facts They Know

Reddit user Kuli24 asked: 'What's a movie fact you know that pretty much no one else knows?'

movie set
Chris Murray on Unsplash

Easter eggs, bloopers, trivia, behind the scenes anecdotes... cinephiles live collecting them and sharing their knowledge with others.

Some trivia is well known—like Eric Stoltz was replaced by Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future. Other tidbits are more obscure, like Arnold Schwarzenegger was first considered for the Michael Biehn role of Kyle Reese in The Terminator.

Some stories are conspiracy theories or urban legends—like the body in the forest on The Wizard of Oz set.

But what about just film facts? The obscure ones?

Keep reading... Show less
An illuminated mansion at night
Photo by Daniel Barnes on Unsplash

It's no secret that as a person starts to make more money, they may forget how difficult they had it when there was less money coming into their bank account.

Not only are rich people often incredibly out-of-touch with the realities of most people's lives, but what they choose to prioritize and bring into their home is often pretty bizarre, too.

Already side-eyeing, Redditor Jerswar asked:

"What's the weirdest thing you've witnessed in the home of a rich person?"

Love Can't Be Bought

"Rich grandparents had a brand new house built, had a $100,000 splash pad built for their only grandchild who has never visited them at their new house."

- wyoflyboy68

"This reminds me of when my sister built her house. She had a barrier-free ground-floor apartment built in it, so my grandmother could visit. She never did."

- P44

A Separate Hoarder's House

"I had a rich neighbor growing up who'd always invite us over for parties and always insisted on giving us gifts and leftovers. They did this with every guest."

"They were also hoarders but built a separate house to keep their crap in. It was filled with whatever they bought but never used and even never got out of the packaging it was delivered in."

"They told my mom to take a box of what she wanted, and for s**ts and giggles, she did. It was a knife collection and sharpener set."

- MUSTARDUNAVAILABLE

Unusual Art

"I was at John Waters’ house for his birthday and he has a room set up as a lifelike recreation of a meth lab (it wasn’t a real meth lab, it’s an art piece)."

"He told me that when Bill Clinton visited him the secret service agents were extremely concerned about the room."

- writeleahwrite

Weird Pet Relationships

"One client had a whole separate house on their property just for their dogs. They'd referred to it as the 'dog house,' and I was expecting like maybe a little building in the yard where they kept their toys or something, but this was a fully furnished home with king-sized beds and a huge playroom on the main floor."

"They had a full training and feeding staff to care for the dogs and everything. They lived in their own house and would come over to visit. Seemed like a weird dynamic to have with your pet..."

"One client didn't have a litterbox for the cats, their cats I guess didn't like using the boxes in the basement and they didn't want to put boxes upstairs so they put down pond liner and kitty litter across an entire room in the basement and had their housekeeper run a rake through it daily."

- daabilge

Special Needs Kitty Mystery Mansion

"As a kid back in the Mesozoic Era (I'm old), my best friend and I used to play in a converted racquetball court and lounge under the old West Coast mansion her family had lived in since its construction."

"The stairs to it were hidden behind a closet off of the abandoned servants' quarters. Halfway down the stairs was a wine cellar. A decoy as the actual wine cellar for the home was under the kitchen….. Another staircase behind a rack of dusty bottles led two stories down to our giant play area beneath this."

"At the beginning of WWII, before Pearl Harbor, my friend’s paranoid WWI vet grandfather had dug out the space over fear of Japanese (or German) invasion. Her dad made the giant room regulation designed for racquetball years later. Maybe originally squash. Not sure, but the lounge area was also glassed off above it so one could look down into the court like a gallery."

"It was really neat. Also upstairs in the living room was a wall straight out of an old mystery novel. If you pushed a spot just right, the wall opened to a hidden room. Super tiny and had a button to ring certain other rooms in the house as the home had these already to call for staff. My friend's mom said it was so if someone quickly had to hide, they could alert the household of danger."

"We used to pretend to be on Nancy Drew cases all the time... so fun."

"The family was wealthy, but despite the amazing home, they lived a completely pretentious free life. Normal cars, camping vacations, frugal living as sport."

"But they were philanthropists too, especially supporting organizations like the humane society. One thing about this family’s home was all the cats. I loved kitties but had a mother who preferred her animals well-seasoned. The family had the space so they always had, and were looking to adopt out but often didn’t, at least 20 rescue cats, many with special needs."

"I’m old, I didn’t know how to write that. Special needs kitty mystery mansion really is actually an appropriate description..."

- waltersmama

"Special needs kitty mystery mansion with hidden panic rooms and decoy wine cellars is like, the best possible fever dream."

- ConneisseurOfDanger

A Unique Viewing Experience

"In Naples, FL., I was at a house with a sensory deprivation room. Flat black walls with acoustic dampening baffles, in the middle was a coffin-like bathtub. It had speakers and a flat-screen display in the lid."

"I heard that the room cost over $100K to build."

- frank_sarno

A Christmas Village

"They had part of the house permanently decorated for Christmas and it included a fully decorated Christmas tree that was suspended upside down from the ceiling. Which was pretty awesome."

- lithecello

New Meaning to "Don't Take Your Work Home"

"My wife and I used to babysit for this wealthy couple when they went on ski trips etc."

"Except for the children's schoolbooks, there wasn't a book, magazine, or newspaper in the house."

"The man was a publisher."

- Texbadger349

The End of Laundry

"I knew someone who didn't like to do laundry so she just bought new clothes for each of her 4 kids every week. They were always high-quality or designer clothes. At the time, all her kids were 10 to 16 years old."

"What would happen if they liked an item a lot and couldn't find it again? Why not just teach the kids to do their own laundry? Why not hire a housekeeper who can do it?"

"There are so many options, other than spending thousands every month just to avoid laundry. Plus, they rarely donated it. Just bagged it up and threw it out. I never could wrap my head around it."

- coffee-jnky

Can We Be the Trivia Guy?

"I know someone who's worked for a very rich person, probably worth billions. He had more than 100 staff on site, including chefs for the staff...all while divorced and living alone. He had a 'trivia' staff member... someone hired to tell him interesting facts and stories daily. That was his only job."

"Someone else was hired to maintain his shoes. Polish, shine, the works."

"If I didn't hear it firsthand, I wouldn't have believed it."

- mambo-nr4

A Mud Room, Indeed!

​"I used to work as an exterminator, mostly pest control. This had me walking through houses from the poor to the rich."

"One day, I pulled up to a four-story mansion with more rooms than I could count."

"I spoke with the lady at the door and got started. As I sprayed, I noticed there wasn’t much furniture in the house. As I went, I made a game of counting the furniture I could find. Over 50 rooms and the whole building had 13 pieces of furniture."

"Pretty odd, but then I went into the very last room, a mud room right by the door I came into."

"I stopped as I walked in, completely shocked. A huge, full-sized (alive) adult pig stretched from one end of the room to the other, resting on the tile floor. I’m talking five or six feet stretched out across the room. Flies buzzed around its head as it stared at me."

"Suddenly, the lady (who I hadn’t seen since she let me in) said, 'Oh, don’t go in there. She doesn’t like men,' and then she walked me out, paid me, and went back inside."

- Moist-Exchange2890

His Very Own Hot Wheels Garage

"Buddy of mine has a car elevator."

"Instead of just building a bigger garage, he stores his cars stacked onto each other, like some kind of Hot Wheels accessory. It's very surreal."

- SmackEh

Make Yourself at Home

​"My friend's dad growing up was one of the top lawyers in our state. Their house was so d**n big, I got confused (lost as h**l) on all the staircases they had everywhere. They would split in a few places and lead to banisters that had different connections to different parts of the house."

"They had a room just for dishes. Her mom had a huge room for sewing and another for different crafts. They both had an office. Many guest rooms. A small kitchen in one part with a sink, coffee pot, and fridge. Their main bathroom for guests had heated floors and rainfall showers and everything. I LOVED HER SHOWER."

"Her room had a balcony and a table outside."

"They had a pool and hot tub. Horses and a barn and lots of cute barn cats."

"I was very poor and had a messed up situation in my childhood. I stayed there a lot and they would even take me for weeks in the summer because my mother was not there. They are really great people."

" They didn't give handouts or anything, I would literally scoop up horse shit and clean stalls and help with everything for those horses when I stayed. I wanted to help."

"They had a maid, but we still cleaned up after ourselves. Their kitchen was gigantic, and I always loved the fancy pasta water arm over the stove. I had so much fun cooking with her mom and us having the big dinners (Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas) with them."

"They were so magnificent and beyond anything I would have ever experienced without them. I got my first pair of cowboy boots from them for Christmas. Her dad bought me a plane ticket one time out of the blue because I wanted to visit my grandmother. Never forget them."

- xNinjaNoPants

So Much Wasted Food

"A very rich person I know does not eat leftover food. They will cook a feast and after, everything goes straight in the garbage no matter how much is left over."

- duckduckroosebolton

"My husband won’t eat leftovers because he thinks it will give him diarrhea. His family is preoccupied with food poisoning but doesn’t know any of the actual food safety rules."

"Oh well, more for me."

- jendet010

"My brother-in-law’s family does this but they are middle class. It’s such a waste!"

- outlawjoseymeow

An Art Enthusiast

"Not weird but a Van Gogh, just chillin' in the hallway. I took a selfie with the flash on, whoops."

- Raccoon_Expert_69

"When I did executive level IT support years back, I found a Monet dangling haphazardly on an office chair in the CEO's extra office (which was unused for storage, and had an extra desktop computer I would sometimes use for quick tasks when on that floor)."

"Another time, I was admiring a Joan Miro coffee table book in his main office, and when his assistant noticed, he showed me into a side room I didn’t realize was there, which had a mini gallery of original Miro drawings."

- spymusicspy

It's amazing what people will spend money on when they have the money to spare. It would be so interesting to see how much more a person would explore a hobby if they had the money to spend.

Movie Twists That Caught Audiences Completely Off-Guard
Photo by Krists Luhaers on Unsplash

There's nothing like leaving a movie theater having just seen an excellent movie.

Particularly one that took you by surprise.

Perhaps it was deeper and more meaningful than it purported itself to be, or on the flip side, had much more warmth and humor that you would have expected.

Or, the film took an unexpected twist that you never saw coming.

Resulting in your needing to bite your tongue until the rest of your friends and family see the film, and not spoil the surprise for them.

Redditor HornyCorny was curious to hear which plot twists left viewers utterly speechless, leading them to ask:

"What’s a movie twist that caught you completely off guard?"

He Didn't See It Coming Either!

"Brad Pitt in 'Burn After Reading'."

"So surprising and downright freaking hilarious."- thefirehairman

If The Shoe Fits...

"'The Shawshank Redemption'."

"Come on."

"It's not always a man notices another man's shoes."- FUBARspecimenT-89

Lucky For Some, Not For All...

"'Lucky Number Slevin'."

"Huge twist and very satisfying."- kvlr954

angry josh hartnett GIF Giphy

Rosie O'Donnell Would Agree...

"Fight Club."- BuchseeI

"once watched it with a friend who had never even heard of it, and she called the twist like, a half hour in."

"She said it as a joke and didn't realize she was right until the actual reveal, but still I was shook."- yugosaki

I See You Keyser Söze

"The ending of 'The Usual Suspects'."- Schwarzes__Loch

Definitive Shyamalan

''The Sixth Sense'."

'I love movies with plot twists, but I never imagined this one. It caught me completely off guard."- lucasduka

Haley Joel Osment Movie GIF Giphy

The Title Is Also Misleading...

"The second half of 'Parasite'."- iwontrememberthat4

Appropriately, They Really Toyed With Your Cognition

"'The Game'."- DudeHeadAwesome

"Good one!'

"I spent the entire movie going 'is it a game? Is it real?'"- fastpixels

There Were Definitely Ghosts...

"'The Others'."

"Unsuspected end."- NeckComprehensive743

scared horror film GIF by FilmStruck Giphy

One Unforgettable Opening Scene

"'Scream'."

"The Drew Barrymore role."- LivingTheLife53

The Real Reason Everyone Is Terrified Of Bees...

"When I was a kid, I wanted to feel good and happy."

"So at the video store, I decided to rent a movie with two happy laughing kids on the DVD cover, thinking it would be a feel-good playful story."

"That movie was 'My Girl'."

"Eff that movie."

"Seriously."

'The DVD cover lies."

"IT LIES."- buckyhermit

You THOUGHT you knew who the villains were...

"'From Dusk to Dawn' — midway point."

"Didn’t know at all what I was walking into when saw it in the theatre decades ago — just, you know, Salma Hayek. Good enough."

"Quentin Tarantino slurping tequila from her foot after it ran down the entire length of her leg — that was already a 'Holy WTF' moment."

"But then, well.. . you know."

"And if you don’t know — quick, go watch it. "

"No trailer, no synopsis, no summary."

"Find it and load it 'blind' and fasten your seatbelt."

"You’re in for a wild ride."- canada11235813

George Clooney Tarantino GIF by MIRAMAX Giphy

It's Title Is More Than Accurate!

"'Crazy Stupid Love'."

"The scene when the whole movie goes apesh*t in the yard is one of my all time favorite movie scenes."- Fimbulvintern

Trifecta Of Twists

"'The Others'."

"The end of 'The Mist'."

"'The Prestige' (though, I ALMOST had it figured out, but not quite)."- Krinks1

There's nothing better than when a movie surprises you.

Even if it does make talking about said movie with people who haven't seen it a bit more challenging.

Case in point, people who saw The Sixth Sense and The Usual Suspects after their endings were spoiled for them, don't seem to like those movies as much as those who went in blind.