Overthinking

At the end of this past curling season I won a door prize of a $10 gift card for Shoppers Drug Mart. It's a Canadian drug store chain, so I would have to spend it in Canada. No big deal; I'm there often enough.

The silly thing is, I began tying myself in knots mentally about when I'd use it and what I'd buy. This was special, I was thinking. It must be used wisely. It must be spent on exactly the right thing. I was treating the card as some sort of golden ticket rather than the effective ten dollar bill which is all it really was. 

Being in Toronto (which conveniently is in Canada) this past weekend, I finally spent it. As me son Frank and I made our way about town Saturday afternoon we stumbled upon a Shoppers. We stopped in and bought a pop and a snack each, and blew the card. Why? Because I finally told myself it was stupid to 'save' it. We were thirsty and vaguely hungry. Use the card.

The really dumb part was how relieved I was afterward. It was a weight off my shoulders, a burden lifted, to actually have spent that gift card. Silliness. But how better can you use a gift than with family on a short vacation? 

I really have to stop overanalyzing.

Algorithm by McDonald's

I fully understand that the Internet is driven by algorithms. I know that an awful lot, indeed probably more than we realize, of our personal information is out there in the ether. There's no need for this to be too much of a concern, really. Quite a bit of it is public knowledge anyway; my birthday is a matter of public record, me Great Grandpa James once said. For some things, there simply is no point in worrying about who knows them.

Still, when I opened up Facebook yesterday to find an ad about how 61 year olds can earn an easy $75 McDonald's gift card well, I was a tad shocked. I know they know (and they know that I know that they know, and you can keep it going from there) how old I am. But as I have never ordered McD's online, have they made a connection I am not aware of (or, yes, forgot about, as I am 61) between myself and the Golden Arches? It concerns me just a bit.

Any way you slice it, that gift card better get here soon. I'm hungry.