This page is from my Old*angler posting ID so you almost certainly found it from a post on the eBay community boards and most likely visited because you wondered what in the world I meant by TANSTAAFL in my signature.

I'm an oldish fellow (66) with 9 living children, 13 grandchildren, one war survived, and a variety of jobs, and now mostly retired. I have always loved Science Fiction books and my all time, hands down favorite (favourite if you are in the UK) author is Robert Heinlein.

He coined the acronym TANSTAAFL for "There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch" in his 1966 novel The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. It means that a person or a society cannot get something for nothing. Even if something appears to be free, there is always a cost to the person or to society as a whole even though that cost may be hidden or distributed.

The phrase was taken from the the once-common tradition of saloons in the United States of providing a "free" lunch to patrons as long as they bought at least one drink. The saloon keeper was not being either nice or foolish as the items available were heavily salted so that eating them made the patron thirsty and the saloon keeper sold enough additional spirits to more than offset the cost of the food.

 In the novel, it was first mentioned when some newcomers to the moon living domes complained about the need to pay for air if they wanted to breathe.  The reality there was that someone paid to manufacture the air and expected to be paid for their efforts.  No pay, no breathe, and die.

On a personal note, old*angler, mrs*angler, and two dogs live in a 38 ft. 5th wheel (a style of caravan/RV), travel about, and sell from wherever we happen to be. Right now (April 2011) we are stopped for a while at Lake Victor RV Park in the northern Florida Panhandle

Chez Anglers

Lake Victor