“Carports for Sale – $795.00″ The quonset hut type deals made out of tube steel and some roof metal. And the concrete pad for another 600 bucks. I figure people really don’t know there are better things to spend their money on. Saves the paint job? Every couple of years I get a can of spray paint and cover the oxidized parts on the ol’ GMC pickup. 2 bucks…
Car centered world. I walked a dozen eggs over to the neighbor yesterday. He offered me a ride home – 1/4 mile. No thanks. At some point, maybe 5 bucks a gallon, people will not look at a half mile walk as a big deal – like leaving the car where it is on the Vole-Mart parking lot to do that next errand at the Office Max in the same strip complex. Unfortunately at 5 bucks a gallon their job disappeared so they aren’t out shopping anyway.
A local market in a town nearby closed down. Fuller’s market was located in a regular neighborhood – had been there for 60 years or so – a second generational business. Tape total maybe 5% more than at the big chain Price Cutter located far out on the main drag. 5000 people were within walking distance to Fuller’s, the Price Cutter has a good half mile of dead zone around it before the first houses appear. You paid a dime more for a dozen eggs at Fuller’s – the PC can sell them as a loss leader for another dime under regular price because 1 out of 3 shoppers will buy some stupid hugely marked up trivial piece of crap (another plastic collander, anyone… new cheese slicer cuz the old one broke, etc?). The big stores always make their money back. Fuller’s just sold food.
I lost the desire to buy what was on the list that day at Price Cutter. Realized that 2/3rds of the stuff in that store didn’t have anything to do with filling up the belly. Walked out empty and stopped at the local supermarket in the town closest to me. Paid the extra percentage. Guess what? Wether I bought the shit from Fuller’s, Price Cutters, or the local Town and Country, the corporations that package up the crap, the transportation industry that hauls it, and the taxing authorities still got their same cut.
Believing we actually have choices that can make a difference is such a grand delusion. I just don’t want to participate in the Economy anymore. It’s just feeding the beast that is shitting in my house and stealing my stuff.
By the way, the second cheese slicer in a year fell apart. The wire snapped on the old one we had for years – used to be my Grandma’s. Never got around to going to a music store for a guitar string to fix it – just bought a made in China one that broke in a month followed by this last one that lasted a few more months. Buy (buy buy buy) a guitar string maybe and have a real cheese slicer again? Discovered today that the stupid potato peeler shaves off a slice of cheese thinner than Grandma’s slicer ever could.
It’s the little victories that keep me going…
