Here are a few things I didn’t learn when I should have. 

1.  How to use chopsticks.

But, I mean…when I was a kid we once had canned chop suey, didn’t like it and never had it again. My first actual Chinese food came my way on a lunch break from rehearsal when I was 24 years old.

2. How to use the “speeds” on a bicycle

My only bike when I was a kid was a “cruiser”. No gears, pedal brakes. When I first hopped on a 10-speed with handlebar brakes I was lost. Lucky I didn’t kill myself.

3. How to tie the waistband in sweatpants so they don’t fall down.

I didn’t often wear sweatpants when I was a kid and when I did first wear them, the pants had an elastic waistband, no tying required. My first tie-up sweats were a constant threat to my modesty.

And the thing is…I still don’t know how to do any of those things. And yet I have somehow survived 75 years. Ignorance may or may not be bliss, but it seems to somehow be consistent with survival. So that’s awright.

A good while back, maybe three or four years ago…shoot, maybe five or six years ago, who knows?...I saw an old interview with actor Lee Marvin. It was interesting and I thought, I’d like to know more. 

So I went online and found that there was a biography available titled simply “MARVIN”. A copy was available on Amazon from some independent seller. He or She had one copy, used. And that was all I could find. The asking price was not unreasonable, but was more than I felt like paying at the time. I think it was somewhere between 20 and 30 dollars. So I plunked it into my “Saved for Later” section and hoped either the price would go down or I would win the lottery.

And it stayed there all these however many years. The price did fluctuate, however. Boy, did it ever. After spending a while in the $70-100 range, it started moving up. Way up. Every time I looked the price was in the $200-400 range. Way too steep for me, but I left it there, mostly just to watch the numbers joggle. A few months ago it really hit the heights. The price was approximately $750. “Wow,” I thought, “this must be really rare.”

It didn’t stay at those heights for long, but dropping to the $300-400 range didn’t make it any likelier that I’d buy it.

A few weeks ago, I was surprised to find it had dropped to something near the $100 price. It hovered there for a couple of weeks.

Then the day, about two weeks ago, when I checked in and Amazon told me the price had dropped from $98 to $4.20. That’s four dollars and twenty cents. 

I figured it had to be a mistake. I even checked the book page itself and indeed it read $4.20. So I immediately plunked it in my cart and ordered it, figuring all the while that something would pop up at the last minute “Price has risen to $257.89”  But it didn’t. 

My email from Amazon said I’d paid $4.20 and the book would soon be on its way. 

As of now, delivery is supposed to occur sometime next week. I feel like I’ve gotten away with grand larceny. And I can only think of the guy selling the book. He had hopes of getting the down payment on a new car, and now he’ll be lucky to afford a couple of candy bars. Maybe only one and a half.