THE BAD DEAL

Imagine a guy walks up to you on the street and says:

• “Hey man, my name is Gilt City and I got a great deal: Four margaritas at Dream Hotel’s Ava Lounge for $24 bucks, half the regular price.” You say: Sure, I’ll head over right now. 
• Then he says, “Well, thing is, it’s not that simple. You have to buy the deal through me, you can’t actually buy the half-price drinks at the bar. See, I’m selling you a non-refundable stock option for four margaritas that expires in Mid-September.” Pardon me? 
• “Yeah, that’s right. You’re buying these four margaritas in advance, except you don’t get to drink them if you don’t use the voucher in time.” That sounds kind of dumb doesn’t it?
• “It’s incredibly dumb, but it gets even dumber. See, you can’t have the four margaritas yourself.” I can’t? “Nope, you need to bring a friend and split the four margaritas.” 
• Can I bring three other friends and we can have a margarita each? “Nope, has to be just one friend.” But what if we want something other than a margarita for our second drink? “Sorry, you’ll have to pay extra for that? Remember, I’m saving you $24 bucks!!!” 
• Hey are we done yet? ”Absolutely not. I can save you even more money on Champagne.” Oh jeez. “That’s right, I can get you a bottle of Veuve Clicquot Rose for 45% off. It’s only $95, down from $175.” 
• But doesn’t that Champagne really retail about $50 bucks in stores? You’re not really saving me money are you? “Of course not, we’re really charging around double retail price, instead of over triple retail price. You can have two bottles per table at $95, but after that, it goes back up to $175.”
• Is that it? “No, two more things: you need to buy before Monday when the deal expires, and for the champagne, we’d appreciate if you tipped on the full $175 amount. So what do you say?”

No man, I’m just gonna pay for my margaritas full price somewhere else, and if I want a second drink that’s not a margarita, I’ll go ahead and order it. I’ll decide then, not now. After all, I don’t buy margarita or champagne stock options.