3-17-24 – If you’re lucky to be Irish… you’re lucky enough

Luck… oh how I wish it found me in lottery winnings, but have a few Irish friends and more than a few friends with Irish in them… so I am lucky enough!

What took me to you today, beyond the luck of friendship and family, is the annual contemplation of a credit card. Okay don’t laugh, and surely don’t try to find the connection. Zero connection at the surface level. Maybe by the completion of the blog, I will have found a connection?

Each year American Express hits me with the annual fee. It ain’t cheap, surely not the mac daddy fee that Platinum card holders pay, just the joe schmo price of admission fee. But each year I rail, what the hell, what’s wrong with this equation, blah blah blah, and pay it.


This year, maybe Marie Kondo and sparking “Joy” was in my head, maybe being more forward thinking was in my head, who knows, but I did not pay it. Payed the charges; I’m nothing if not a good citizen to the credit structure, I charge, I pay, but did not pay the fee. I’ll show that damn AMEX… and the thing does not expire until Dec 2024!!


Just received my latest bill, of course they zapped me with a late charge. Hah, go pound sand AMEX, as soon as I figure out how to move monthly EZ Pass charge that sits on this card, I’m done with you!! I pulled the card out of my wallet. And then I noticed.

Member since 1989.

Damn it AMEX. I was immediately in memories, 35 years ago, working for a law firm, the only credit card in my wallet… Sears.
Ps – good old Sears, loved them for taking a chance on me. I was the original chucklehead who associated checks in the checkbook with money in the bank… oh honey, no, hard no. Checks = Pretend. Money=Money.


American Express took a chance on me too. And I was learned soul who did not mess with the AMEX model, charge today but pay it ALL at the end of the month. A friendly loan if needed, but only until the end of the month. And then the jig (circling back to that Irish!) is up, pay the teller.


1989… the start of, the end of, all part of my history. A financial planner would not like me anthropomorphizing a credit card. Is that the right use of that word? But that card and its annoying fee does indeed spark Joy so I’ve met the Marie Kondo test?!

Tomorrow I will call AMEX, ask them to waive their late fee, in exchange I will pay their maniacal annual fee, and we’ll dance on for another year.

Good Spring tidings. Talk soon.

Hope to see you along the way.

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