My apologies for my weekend silence. The worst has happened: my internet connection has been disabled, due to a distinct lack of payment on my end for services rendered on their end. "But shouldn't your latest paycheck come in handy to solve this problem?" you may ask? Herein lies the saga of my paycheck:
When last we left our hero, he was sitting in his old office, staring at a filing cabinet. The Evil Paycheck Fairy had left early, keys to filing cabinet in hand. Multiple phone calls to her finally uncover the fact that she had gone to dinner and left her keys at home.
Then our hero gets inventive. He searches google.com, using "lock picking" as keywords. Finds a tutorial, complete with diagrams. Fifteen minutes later, bent paperclips in sweaty hands, he triumphantly opens the filing cabinet drawer, and removes his paycheck! (Good god, I felt so hardcore) "Now we need to relock that," says the hero's boss. Thinking he can pick the lock shut, he roots about on top of the desk for another paperclip. This is where our hero is visited by the Goddess of Irony: accidentally knocked over, the paperclip dispenser reveals a spare key, taped to the bottom.
Adventure behind him, our hero goes home. Cashes his check. Pays a whole passel of bills (not including the DSL bill). Loans his roommate money for a new camera. Buys a new 30-day-unlimited Metrocard, to facilitate his travels about the City. Goes shopping and spends $100 on items he has been desperately needing, namely, a new book, some hair wax, a hair cut, some hair bleach, and other assorted beautification products related to shaving his scruffy whiskers off.
With slightly less than 1/10 of his original paycheck left, our hero tries to return home. Pocket full of old, used-up Metrocards, he decides to thin the herd, as it were. Swipes them each in turn and discards the ones that read "Available Balance $0.00." However, it has been so long since he has been able to afford an unlimited Metrocard, he forgets that unlimited cards always read Available Balance $0.00, and have an expiration date appended to the digital readout. Before he can stop himself, he drops his brand new month pass into the discard box.
An hour and a half and several frantic conversations with the booth attendant later, a cleaner shows up with key in hand, to open the second lock in two days that has occupied a large amount of our hero's attention. Mercifully, this discard box is old-school, without the automatic de-magnetization protections of newer models. Counting his lucky stars, the hero returns home once more.
There is more to the Weekend Saga, but it shall wait for a later entry -- as I am at work and must appear more productive than I do at the moment.