I thought I was bad with money.
Every now and then, I’ll read some news that makes my eyes bug out and my jaw drop to the floor because I can’t believe how stupid it is.
This week, it was the news that fired FBI agent Peter Strzok has raised over $400,000 for his legal costs and lost income via a GoFundMe campaign.
Let me rephrase: Actual people with actual brains actually decided that the best use of their hard-earned cash was to just give it away to this dude. I really can’t believe it. I mean, I thought I was bad with money until I saw people were giving theirs to Peter f***ing Strzok. I can spend my money much more wisely than that, and I’m saying that as someone who once spent $20 to have a single Slurpee delivered to her apartment so she didn’t have to go outside.
Personally, I am someone who believes that Strzok should have been fired sooner. His job demanded that he remain unbiased, and we have text-message proof that he was not. We have text-message proof of him literally saying he wanted to take Donald Trump down. It’s also not like Strzok has lived his life in a way that would make him a particularly sympathetic figure. After all, on top of him being bad at his job, it seems that he was also pretty bad at being a husband. Like, I may not know a ton about marriage (I am single and live alone with a cat), but I do know that the people we call “good husbands” are generally ones that don’t cheat on their wives. I do know that much!
Here’s the thing, though: Even if you’re not someone who believes that Strzok should have been fired, and even if you’re not someone who believes it’s bad to cheat on your wife (maybe you cheat on your own wife), I still don’t understand why you’d want to give him your cash — and, as for the people in the latter group, that’s not just because all the mistresses that you probably have are getting expensive. It’s because donating money to Peter Strzok is objectively a hilariously stupid way to actually decide to spend your actual money.
I mean, do these people not know all of the cool stuff you can do with money? You can take a vacation. You can go out to dinner. You can buy an adult-sized penguin suit (like I said, I’m bad with money). It may not buy happiness, but money can buy beer and seasons of Alf on Apple TV, and that’s going to get you a lot closer to happiness than donating to a fired, cheating lowlife.
I didn’t start a GoFundMe campaign to replace my lost waitressing wages — I just got another job.
Of course, I’m not saying that it’s a bad thing to donate your money. Donating to people who really, truly need it is very great and very important. Here’s the thing, though: I’d bet literally all of my own money that you could easily find a cause that’s more deserving than this one. How do I know? Because people are literally dying. There are terminally ill people who need money to pay their medical bills, and there are hospitals that need money to research the diseases that are killing them. If you are someone who actually decided to give your money to Peter Strzok instead of one of these sorts of causes, then I don’t understand how it could be hard for you to understand why I have no respect for you.
People get fired all the time. Believe me, I was fired from a Ruby Tuesday once, so I know. What’s more, I know enough to know that getting fired isn’t a charity cause; it’s something that you deal with and then move on. I didn’t start a GoFundMe campaign to replace my lost waitressing wages — I just got another job. That’s what you do: You get another job, and you handle your own life. Unless, apparently, you’re Peter Strzok — and people are just dumb enough to give their cash to you.