I decided to fly to the USA at a few moment's notice but I didn't see the need to give a second thought to where I might stay once I got there.
I feel especially foolish about this considering that the internet is still in its relative infancy and there aren't all of the handy impulsive travel and accommodation booking websites advertised by sassy young Australian women that I imagine there will be in 10-15 years' time.
Anyway, as luck would have it, I was invited by four very friendly girls whom I met by chance at a diner to go back and stay with them at their house. Very kind of them - all fine so far.
Now, this is where it starts to get weird. They started to tell me how poor they were and that they could only afford one bed (in a suspiciously large-looking house) to share between them. I get that: beds are expensive. However, their plight was far worse than I could have imagined as they tearfully informed me that they couldn't afford pyjamas and, therefore, had to sleep naked.
I was so gagging for the opportunity to back with them immediately and give their finances a really good seeing-to.
Sadly, it was pearls before swine and all they wanted to do, rather than sensibly going through spreadsheets and pie-charts with me - which clearly demonstrated the medium-term benefits of not going to the diner for a number of weeks and instead saving the money they would have spent on drinks until they could afford to buy eight pairs of pyjamas (one each to wear, one each in the wash) from the thrift store; and thus turn the heating down by several degrees and reap the savings in no time, enough to buy at least a futon each, if not a full bedstead - was to fool around and, to be blunt, do rather inadvisable and inappropriate things with a strange man from abroad whom they've only just met I didn't say no, though.
So to summarise, AIBU to think that American schools should spend much more time on lessons about personal fiduciary conduct and the financial benefits of delaying gratification for the greater longer-term gains and much less time giving them ideas about what I'm going to call very different kinds of instant gratification?