When I actually had a job what paid me, part of that job involved charging people who didn’t have the support plan they needed for me to actually, you know, support them. My manager at the time, in some of those cases, called it a stupid tax. Not necessarily because folks were stupid to pay it, but because 9 times in 10, the reason they were calling in was a direct result of their own stupidity–like, say, let’s click on this random Facebook link from a guy who never talks to me, because viruses are pretty. I thought the only people who employed such logic were the folks I worked with. Nope, apparently not. It’s also a thing if you happen to be a debt collector of the drug variety.
While the outcome of the confrontation was one man dying in a parking lot and two suffering bullet wounds as bystanders ran for cover, a notebook found at the scene reveals the collector’s odd street code of conduct.
He kept a handwritten tally of debts, grievances and fines like a principal tracking schoolyard discipline: One cohort was charged $1,000 as a “stupid tax” and fined $1,000 “for having that chick stop by.” A debt was increased for “pissing me off” and fines were “double when you don’t pay or couldn’t do your job,” the notes said, as detailed in a court ruling this week.
And in reading half of that, at least one person will ask. Did this guy happen to know a one-time roommate of mine? So now we’ve got probably the first ever solidified test case for the implementation of the stupid tax. I wonder if he ever actually had it paid…