Big Bucks

Today, AM NY reported that a man who bought a pack of cigarettes received a whomping $23.1 quadrillion charge on his credit card bill.

Sure, it's ridiculous, and he doesn't have to pay, along with the others who suffered a similar glitch. But maybe it was a sign to him, that smoking cigarettes is much, much more expensive than the price of the pack. It might well cost him something worth more than quadrillions of dollars: his life.

The Bay News had a charming photo of Duke, one of the Aquarium's sea lions, giving a "sea lion kiss" to a young lady. The caption read that sea lion kisses are being sold as fundraisers for the New York Aquarium, at $200 a pop. $200? Wait a second! I happen to know that the real cost is $20. What a big blooper for the Bay News, whose proofreaders didn't catch that extra zero.

Then again, if some rich folks decide to buy $200 kisses, maybe the Bay News has done the Aquarium a big favor. It happened to me in my early days as a fundraiser: I tacked on an extra zero to a renewal request of a man who'd sent an unsolicited gift of $100 the year before. My boss chewed me out and told me to be more attentive to details, but the letter asking him to renew his gift of "$1000" had already been mailed. He sent the $1,000, and the next year he sent $10,000. So, we can only hope that this typo will turn into a windfall for the Aquarium.

Duke should only know that his kisses are 24-carat.