There Ain't No Such Thing as a Free Lunch

Fall 1995. Econ 110. SKWT. Professor Wimmer. I think that nearly everything I learned in that class, I learned the first day when Professor Wimmer wrote on the board, "there ain't no such thing as a free lunch". He then had us repeat it outloud - all 200+ of us - in unison after him. I spent the rest of the semester sitting in the back reading the "Daily Universe" for the first 20 mins of class and doing the assigned econ homework for the next lecture for the last 30 mins of class. But I digress...I recently acquired a free table off a hippie listserv I'm a member of (freecycle) with no small amount opportunity cost (the 2nd and last piece of economics theory that I learned in Econ 110).

Once I had it in place, with my chairs around the table, I noticed a serious flaw. Please see if you can identify the problem with my table and why it will probably end up annoying me so much that I'll need to get a different table.

So much for a "free lunch" and, as Cousin Dave would say, "sometimes an elephant for a quarter isn't a deal" (or something like that).

Maybe I'll sell it on craigslist...