The Early Termination Fee

I was watching an ad for a cell phone service company and read the fine print that appears for a brief second during the ad. It turned out to be a disclaimer that if the buyer cancelled the contract before the 200th year as stipulated in the contract there would be a $175 dollar early termination fee. Who in the name of all Wall Street Greed thought up the concept of “the early termination fee”? I began to think out loud and said to myself “Wow I hope this doesn’t catch on.”

I can see it now. I have been going to the same $6.00 haircut place for a number of years and if I were to move or just go down the street to the $5.00 place, I could get a bill from my old barber simply for not coming back. “Sorry you no longer want us to give you a crappy haircut. Please remit $175 as an early termination fee”. If Hollywood Video found out I switched to Netflix they might send me a $175 bill for not coming in anymore too. If the concept really gets some wheels I could get billed for changing the tv channel before the program is officially over, which in actuality means the show plus 28 minutes of moronic commercials. Computers could keep track and add the fee to my monthly cable bill. It would certainly make me think twice about cancelling my subscriptions to Skateboarder and Creative Knitting magazine.

Come to think of it, early termination fees have been around as long as people have been borrowing money. I seem to recall a fee if I paid off a loan on a car or the house earlier than the contract indicated. Come to think of it, even if you make it through life physically and emotional unscathed, your family is billed a termination fee by the mortuary chosen to fleece your survivors.

The ultimate insult would be to die as the result of an accident in the prime of life and get to the gate in Heaven only to be told that, I since I showed up before my time, I would have to return to the world as the greeter at Wal-Mart as an early termination fee.

Thanks for listening. I feel much better.