By Jake Vest

The last thing we need at this time of year is one more holiday, so I’m going to propose one: Remorsemas. 

This is the time of year when we traditionally regret how much we spent and wonder if any of the presents we bought are being appreciated half as much as we would appreciate still having the money.  

It is certainly a thing at my house, even if not officially recognized. My wife and I both go out every year and crazily spend OUR money to buy things for each other that neither one of us wants. Sometimes we go down to GoodWill and visit the items we’ve bought each other over the years and just shake our heads and wonder why.  

This might even be worse for parents who guilt themselves into going overboard for things like a $30 microwavable plush capybara, suitable for all ages. Cuddly, cute AND microwavable? I realize I am old and out of touch, but I wouldn’t think nuking a toy animal appropriate for any age.  

This re-heatable rodent is pretty much a temporarily warm pillow, an effect you could get by tossing any old Teddy Bear into the dryer for a few minutes. Thirty bucks seems like a lot for what the buyer is getting, and that is at the relatively low end of the price scale. One toy expected to sell well was a rideable rolling unicorn for $329.  

How upset would you be if your kid wasn’t interested in that one? Happy Remorsemas. 

If you don’t want to celebrate your own regrets, you can celebrate the fact that others have it potentially worse. 

LSU just bought a used football coach, Lane Kiffin, for $90 million. This is a guy who has either been dumped by or has dumped all his previous employers. Somebody has been disappointed every time he has done anything.  

LSU also is still paying part of the $90 million tab for the last coach it regretted hiring. Does the phrase “learning from experience” not apply to institutes of higher education?  

This “checkbooks gone wild” syndrome is not a new thing. In the 1600s there was, I kid you not, a Tulip War in the Netherlands. A single plant could go for the price of a house on Amsterdam’s Grand Canal. Google says that these days such a house might be as much as 8.65 million euros.  

People in those days had sense enough to realize that at some point enough is enough and the economy crashed. 

You kind of have to wonder if enough is ever enough in today’s dollars. The current tulip in the eye of those who run Netflix is Warner Bros. The first is reportedly in a deal to buy the second for $82.7 billion or so.  

Anytime that much money is spent, chances are good that it shouldn’t have been. That is one great big bucketful of potential regretfor somebody. 

Guess who? You can bet your Netflix bills will go up and all the rest of the related telecommunications, cable and streaming costswill follow close behind, and somehow because of all of it, ground beef will get marked up again.  

I am already pre-regretting it. The price of going to a football game has long been out of reach for most of us. Pretty soon we might not even be able to afford to watch it on TV while having a hamburger. 

But there is a bright side. That time we used to waste on football can now be used for growing tulips. Hey, if Lane Kiffin could make a big comeback, who knows?