I paid a scholar in California $75 (he wanted $100!) to translate a signature from archaic Japanese but my appraiser friend told me that the translated artist's name wasn't known, so the information I paid for profited me nothing.

So I started out down $75, but I made it through the day without popping a single benzo, which calls for a tickertape parade. Maybe if I hadn't blown the $75 on the useless signature, I would have had enough to pay for a decent quantity of tickertape for the parade. If tickertape still exists, I'll bet it's available on Amazon Prime.

I realized today that my brother's an even bigger jerk than I am. The horror.