Why is nothing ever simple?  And why are there times in my life when I seem to leak money from every pore?

The problem with being a gadget-hound is that new gadgets open the wallet floodgates.  It’s never a simple matter of buying a new gadget.  No.  There are always new wires, new cables, new adapters, and new accessories that the new gadget requires to work properly.

I inadvertently opened those floodgates last week when I visited the Apple Store with my mom.  I’ve been dreaming of a printer server for about 5 years and of a central remote hard-drive for at least 3 years.  When I heard about the Time Capsule I simply could not resist.  And I’ve not had a single second of regret since making the purchase.  But I had forgotten about the new gadgets floodgate phenomena.  And I’m bumming a little bit about it.

Of course, the Time Capsule in no way caused or created the need for a new monitor for The Daughter’s computer — other than the fact that without the Time Capsule I might have gone another year or two without using her computer and therefore would have remained blissfully ignorant of the fact that her old CRT monitor is on it’s last legs.  The picture would have continued to degrade until one day it would have died completely.  I shudder to think of what additional hours of watching that shimmering, shimmying screen would have done to her eyes, her brain, and her equilibrium.  But the fact remains that the addition of the Time Capsule to our home network lead to my decision to scrap her CRT and buy a new LCD monitor.

So after all three teens finally crawled out of bed and got showered and dressed this morning (The Son was the last one up — I dragged his sorry rear end out of bed at 11am), we all headed out for a little monitor comparison shopping trip.  We started at Best Buy.  I needed to buy a longer audio Y cable anyway and Best Buy is typically a dependable source of decent computer equipment.  I looked at monitors but didn’t see any sales that I simply couldn’t resist.  So I found a sales guy, described the type and length of audio cable I needed, gratefully accepted the offered cable as the solution to my problem (why, oh why do I do this), and proceeded to checkout ($22.68).

I needed an audio Y cable (RCA to mini-stereo jack) long enough to reach from my stereo to my new Airport Express plugged in close to but not right under the stereo.  With the short cable I bought yesterday, the only outlet I could use for the Airport Express is underneath the bookshelf holding the stereo.  Can we say major interference and lousy sound quality?  But when I move the Airport Express over one outlet on the wall, everything is golden — the sound quality on a little ancient boombox of  The Husband’s (circa 1988) is fabulous.  I can’t wait to hear what my airtunes sound like coming from my Onkyo component stereo and my Baby Advent speakers.  But that’s what I’ll have to do — wait.  The helpful guy at Best Buy sold me a set of RCA to RCA cables.  Yeah, like that’s what I asked for?!?

So now I have two cables to return, well, make that three cables to return to Best Buy.  The first being the correct type but woefully too-short audio Y cable.  The second being the incredibly wrong type but temptingly long-enough double-ended RCA cables.  And the third being the VGA extension cable I bought yesterday when what I really wanted was a VGA replacement cable.

After striking out three different times at Best Buy and coming up empty at Radio Shack and Staples, I gave up and simply ordered the necessary cables on-line from Amazon.  In cases such as these, I want instant gratification and having to place a mail order is highly aggravating.

After our ill-fated trip to Best Buy, the teens and I headed over to Costco.  I’d seen a ViewSonic on the Costco.com website that I wanted to take a look at.  The gods were definitely conspiring against me today — turns out that most of their on-line offerings are not available in their stores.  Bummer.  Well, I still managed to feed all three hungry teens for $9.86 — two had pizza and one had a chicken bake thing.  Two had sodas; one a berry smoothie.  Being able to feed a hungry daughter, son, and nephew on less than $10 is truly an amazing experience.

Upon our arrival home from our ill-fated shopping excursion, I did a little more on-line shopping and finally decided to go with the 20″ ViewSonic Optiquest LCD monitor from Costco.com.  The price was $199 plus shipping and tax brought it to $218.59.  But there’s a $20 mail-in rebate (if I can remember to file the rebate) so that will bring the final price down to $198.59.  The 20″ monitor will give The Daughter the biggest screen in the house — lucky kid.  I can’t see how I could manage to wrangle it unless I’d be willing to give up my laptop — something I’m simply not willing to do.

The Amazon order was placed this evening.  The two cables weren’t expensive enough to qualify for free shipping so I asked around to see if anyone wanted anything else.  The Daughter asked me to order the next book in a series she’s reading in her spare time — Eclipse from the “Twilight Saga”.  The Son didn’t need anything but The Husband told me about two Reginald Hill books that are in print but aren’t available through our library system — A Pinch of Snuff and Dialogues With The Dead.  So we ordered those as well.  Those three books along with our two cables brought our total to $45.29 — well above the $25 level necessary to qualify for free shipping.  Free shipping is great — but not quite as wonderful as having enough gift certificate money to not have to pay a single penny out-of-pocket.  Actually, not only did this order not cost me a cent, we still have about $30 worth of gift certificate left 

The upside to losing out on the instant gratification of cables and a new monitor is that I’ll be getting a couple of packages in the mail.  I love getting mail — even when I know exactly what I’m getting and I’m the one who paid.

As much as I’m looking forward to my new goodies and gadgets, I’m also really looking forward to the end of this particular flood of gear and gadgets.  I love new toys but I hate leaking money at this rate.

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