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Probably my favorite example of this is The Hangover -- someone did the math on the guys' Las Vegas misadventure and figured out they would owe about $60,000, thanks to the trashed hotel room, totaled Mercedes, the emergency room visit, etc. And hey, maybe the Wolf Pack got together and borrowed money to pay for it all, or maybe they got the cash from the groom's rich parents. But that's not the point: The point is nobody is worried about it. At the end, they make it to the wedding and all is well -- they agree to never speak of their chaotic weekend again. There was a time when just having the fee for that emergency room visit hanging over my head would have ruined my peace of mind for months.

Warner Bros.

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Yeah, that's another one -- everyone in movie/TV land has spectacular health insurance, apparently. One of the characters in the slacker comedy Workaholics (who works part time as a telemarketing clerk) had to be rushed to the hospital after a wacky misadventure resulted in him getting impaled in the abdomen by a trophy. He recuperates on the sofa under the influence of strong painkillers later, but they don't show him going to the pharmacy counter to get those pills. Yeah, they can't turn you away at the emergency room, but if you show up to the pharmacy with no money, you're not getting the medicine unless you have a gun and a ski mask.

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Otherwise, you just sit there, in pain. And when I say "sit there," I mean at work, not at home -- there's no way that guy's job comes with lots of paid sick days. See, that's what having a terrible cubicle job is really like: It involves multiple stretches of sitting in that chair even when you're in so much pain that you long for the sweet release of death. Speaking of which ...