This is a bit outside my beat (whatever that is), but I couldn’t help passing along this wonderful feature from something called MEL Magazine.
It’s about a guy, identified only as “Dylan,” who lives near the Six Flags amusement/theme park in Los Angeles County. Years ago, in 2014, they offered a one-time deal: $150 for an annually renewable pass to the park, which included free parking and two meals any time you enter.
He lived and worked not far from the park. He bought the pass and, over the ensuing years, he timed his arrival so he could park, enter and eat a free lunch, go back to work, then stop on his way home for a free dinner almost every day, saving him pretty much any spending on food for $150 bucks a year to renew the pass.
According to the magazine piece, at least in the early years when he was just out of school: “That entire first year, I don’t think I ever went to the grocery store,” he says. “I timed it so I was able to go there during my lunch break, go back to work, then stop back for dinner on my way home.”
He claims to have kept this up for years and: “Maybe that sounds outlandish, but after just seven years of daily meals at the theme park, Dylan paid down his student loans, got married and bought a house.”
An old married man of 33 now, working as an electrical engineer, Dylan no longer eats two meals a day at the park, but apparently still has the pass and it still works.
Love it! Stick it to those capitalists.