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Terms Which Have Disappeared

scottyrocks

I'll Lock Up
Messages
9,178
Location
Isle of Langerhan, NY
And the E-Z Pass is the greatest thing invented since the toll road. Not only does it save time, it saves money.

Technically, yes, you are 'saving' money, but it's just that they artificially jack up the price of cash transactions because they want everyone on EZ Pass.

And I don't believe it's altruism. 'They' just want to be able to track everyone as thoroughly as possible.
 
Messages
10,840
Location
vancouver, canada
My memories of that time include feeling like a Rockefeller on account of the five-dollar bill I had in my pocket to start the day, and of the foolishness I felt because it had been reduced to a few pieces of small change before the day was close to done.

It must have been a year or so before that that I declined to purchase a model airplane I had had my eye on, one that actually flew under the power of an itty-bitty two-stroke, because it would have set me back the entire 10 dollars I had amassed, the largest sum I had ever known at that point.

Deferred gratification, I hated it.
My sad airplane tale....as a 6 year old I bought one of those airplanes for about $15...it was 1955. Too young to fly it on my own I awaited my busy father's help. He became I'll and died. The plane sat on a shelf in the basement of my mother's house unmoved, untouched for 50 years. One day a few years back I determined I was going to fly that damned plane. Retrieved the box only to discover the plastic had disintegrated into hundreds of broken shards. All that was left was the engine supported by the wire struts. The plane that never flew......one thing worse than delayed gratification is gratification denied.
 

scottyrocks

I'll Lock Up
Messages
9,178
Location
Isle of Langerhan, NY
My memories of that time include feeling like a Rockefeller on account of the five-dollar bill I had in my pocket to start the day, and of the foolishness I felt because it had been reduced to a few pieces of small change before the day was close to done.

It must have been a year or so before that that I declined to purchase a model airplane I had had my eye on, one that actually flew under the power of an itty-bitty two-stroke, because it would have set me back the entire 10 dollars I had amassed, the largest sum I had ever known at that point.

Deferred gratification, I hated it.

I remember that same feeling. It took me so long to accumulate any significant sum of money that I was almost completely averse to letting it go on a purchase, even if it was something I really wanted. What, if after all that time, I bought it and lost interest? The thought was too upsetting to deal with.
 

Haversack

One Too Many
Messages
1,194
Location
Clipperton Island
I remember the first time I got a five-dollar bill. It was in 1964 for Christmas from a grandparent. My father told me that if I used my new microscope, (also a Christmas present that year), I could read the names of the states that are inscribed around the pediment and frieze of the Lincoln Memorial on the obverse of the bill. I kept that bill for an entire year before spending it along with four one-dollar bills for a Hamilton's Invaders grenade pistol.
 
Messages
17,197
Location
New York City
My sad airplane tale....as a 6 year old I bought one of those airplanes for about $15...it was 1955. Too young to fly it on my own I awaited my busy father's help. He became I'll and died. The plane sat on a shelf in the basement of my mother's house unmoved, untouched for 50 years. One day a few years back I determined I was going to fly that damned plane. Retrieved the box only to discover the plastic had disintegrated into hundreds of broken shards. All that was left was the engine supported by the wire struts. The plane that never flew......one thing worse than delayed gratification is gratification denied.

I am sincerely sorry for you, but have to say, your tale is so sad that it reminds me of those European post-WWII-war movies where a child is so hungry that he spends all day looking for a piece of bread or one lousy coin to buy something to eat (at some point, he sees a coin on the ground just before it rolls into a sewerage drain) only to come home to find other bad things have happened to his family while he was gone. You could easily turn your plane tale into a poignant short story.
 
Messages
10,840
Location
vancouver, canada
If I digress too much please slap me.....as a 10 or 11 yr old me buddies and I after a day of baseball would pool our money and buy the biggest bottle of coke. The bigger one was a much better deal and individually most of us could not afford even the small bottle. I can't recall if we gave it a name but we each had to wipe and dry our lips prior to taking our chug. And woe be to the one who chugged too long. For the life of me cannot recall how much it cost us.....but I do recall a hand full of pooled pennies and the odd nickel.
 
Technically, yes, you are 'saving' money, but it's just that they artificially jack up the price of cash transactions because they want everyone on EZ Pass.

And I don't believe it's altruism. 'They' just want to be able to track everyone as thoroughly as possible.

I guess that's one way of looking at it. They started tolls off at 50 cents, so that when they got around to the EZ Pass years later, the discount price of 25 cents would still be what they wanted all along, and they just tricked people. That takes a heck of a lot of foresight. Perhaps they were that smart, but I'm not so sure.

At any rate, I pay less money using the EZ pass than I would if I didn't. So I use it.
 

LizzieMaine

Bartender
Messages
33,732
Location
Where The Tourists Meet The Sea
There were three sizes of bottled Coke available in the mid-1950s -- the regular six-ounce bottle which cost anywhere from five to seven to ten cents depending on what your local bottler did, the "King Size" ten or twelve ounce bottle priced anywhere from ten cents to fifteen cents depending, again, on your bottler, and the twenty-eight ounce "Family Size," which usually cost around twenty cents to a quarter.

06cf3e4c8b91a31c2a26bfdd4a0c0b37--coke-commercial-tv-commercials.jpg


The introduction of other sizes than the regular 6 ounce bottle was a triumph of the bottlers over Coca-Cola headquarters, where company president Robert Woodruff had lived for decades under the slogan "one product, one package, one price." But the competition from Pepsi and RC, both of which emphasized their twelve-ounce bottles, and the increase in sugar prices after the war, forced the company to finally give in to bottler demands. That was the moment that set us on the course to where we are today with an endlessly brand-extended line of Coca-Cola products in an endless range of packages. Somewhere Robert Woodruff is reaching for an ice-cold six-ounce five-cent Coke, and saying "Glad it's not *my* problem."
 

ChiTownScion

Call Me a Cab
Messages
2,247
Location
The Great Pacific Northwest
There were three sizes of bottled Coke available in the mid-1950s -- the regular six-ounce bottle which cost anywhere from five to seven to ten cents depending on what your local bottler did, the "King Size" ten or twelve ounce bottle priced anywhere from ten cents to fifteen cents depending, again, on your bottler, and the twenty-eight ounce "Family Size," which usually cost around twenty cents to a quarter.

06cf3e4c8b91a31c2a26bfdd4a0c0b37--coke-commercial-tv-commercials.jpg


The introduction of other sizes than the regular 6 ounce bottle was a triumph of the bottlers over Coca-Cola headquarters, where company president Robert Woodruff had lived for decades under the slogan "one product, one package, one price." But the competition from Pepsi and RC, both of which emphasized their twelve-ounce bottles, and the increase in sugar prices after the war, forced the company to finally give in to bottler demands. That was the moment that set us on the course to where we are today with an endlessly brand-extended line of Coca-Cola products in an endless range of packages. Somewhere Robert Woodruff is reaching for an ice-cold six-ounce five-cent Coke, and saying "Glad it's not *my* problem."


The Pause That Refreshes... even for Screwball Squirrel and Meathead the Dog.

upload_2017-9-13_13-47-13.png
 
Messages
12,009
Location
East of Los Angeles
Some are only 25 cents. Some are $1.50. Depends on how far you're going. If you're going a long way, you could end up paying 10 bucks...
It also depends on where you live. Or, more specifically, drive. Here in southern California the lowest toll I've found is $0.61 if you use FasTrak (our version of EZ Tag) and can be as expensive as $7.08 for a single toll on certain roads using the same device.
 

scottyrocks

I'll Lock Up
Messages
9,178
Location
Isle of Langerhan, NY
I guess that's one way of looking at it. They started tolls off at 50 cents, so that when they got around to the EZ Pass years later, the discount price of 25 cents would still be what they wanted all along, and they just tricked people. That takes a heck of a lot of foresight. Perhaps they were that smart, but I'm not so sure.

At any rate, I pay less money using the EZ pass than I would if I didn't. So I use it.

I don't believe they had that much foresight. I think that once they got it all rolling, and possibly saw that more people than expected were not EZPassing, they just jacked the cash price to encourage people to get an EZPass.
 
I don't believe they had that much foresight. I think that once they got it all rolling, and possibly saw that more people than expected were not EZPassing, they just jacked the cash price to encourage people to get an EZPass.

But they didn't do that is my point. The cash price did not change, they simply offered a discount for the EZ pass.
 

3fingers

One Too Many
Messages
1,797
Location
Illinois
There were three sizes of bottled Coke available in the mid-1950s -- the regular six-ounce bottle which cost anywhere from five to seven to ten cents depending on what your local bottler did, the "King Size" ten or twelve ounce bottle priced anywhere from ten cents to fifteen cents depending, again, on your bottler, and the twenty-eight ounce "Family Size," which usually cost around twenty cents to a quarter.

06cf3e4c8b91a31c2a26bfdd4a0c0b37--coke-commercial-tv-commercials.jpg


The introduction of other sizes than the regular 6 ounce bottle was a triumph of the bottlers over Coca-Cola headquarters, where company president Robert Woodruff had lived for decades under the slogan "one product, one package, one price." But the competition from Pepsi and RC, both of which emphasized their twelve-ounce bottles, and the increase in sugar prices after the war, forced the company to finally give in to bottler demands. That was the moment that set us on the course to where we are today with an endlessly brand-extended line of Coca-Cola products in an endless range of packages. Somewhere Robert Woodruff is reaching for an ice-cold six-ounce five-cent Coke, and saying "Glad it's not *my* problem."
This is another perfect example of our collective gluttony in modern society. I remember the small 6 ounce bottles and Pepsi being sold in 10 or 12 ounce sizes. I also remember pint bottles from the grocery store being split with one of my siblings. Now if you purchase a fountain soda at a "convenience store" the small size is 32 ounces! I often buy a soda there and put it in a coffee cup. The clerks look at me like I've just arrived from another planet. What was a large soda at McDonalds is now a small.
 
Messages
10,933
Location
My mother's basement
This is another perfect example of our collective gluttony in modern society. I remember the small 6 ounce bottles and Pepsi being sold in 10 or 12 ounce sizes. I also remember pint bottles from the grocery store being split with one of my siblings. Now if you purchase a fountain soda at a "convenience store" the small size is 32 ounces! I often buy a soda there and put it in a coffee cup. The clerks look at me like I've just arrived from another planet. What was a large soda at McDonalds is now a small.

And the pricing encourages customers to buy the mega version. It's like a buck twenty-nine for the small and a successive 10 cents more for each step up the ladder. So you get 100 percent more product for maybe 25 percent more cost.
 

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