Cemetery offerings in Oaxaca, photo by Lady This visit to the States has been nice for us. Weird, tho. Some prices have skyrocketed. Went to our local coffee shop and they’re selling cookies for $2.00. When we visited 7 months ago, the same cookies were $1.25 or $1.50. We settled for two teas for $3.75. Crazy! At least the tea was fantastic. It came in open ended tissue bags which were stropped to the top of the cup with a stick. My bag had delicate little purple flowers in addition to the green tea. We loaded up on THINGS yesterday in a kind of ecstasy of consumerism. We went to a dollar store and I was totally astonished by what’s available. Tho food’s expensive, THINGS are not. I think these dollar stores must be spoils of the empire. It would be too outrageous for the pillagers of the planet to outright GIVE us the loot, so they sell it to us for a token price. Anyways, we saved a bunch of money stocking up on toothbrushes, floss, aspirin, deodorant and plastic toys that we’re going to use to make collages. If we bought the stuff in Mexico we’d go broke because Mexico doesn’t have dollar stores. Then we went to Target to get cheap durable underclothes and shoes. We wandered the electronics section and I was amazed that they’re still trying to sell DVDs. I wonder if anyone buys anymore, or if they all download from the Internet. There were two aisles in Target devoted to ipod accessories. I’m looking for a microphone for my ipod so I can record street noises for collage but couldn’t find it. But I’m just amazed at how quickly technology is changing and how they get all these new products on the shelves. We wandered over to the food section in Target, and I saw more spoils of empire. Huge quantities of chocolate for sale, for cheap. I don’t know how it is possible for the lizard brains of people to NOT buy all this cheap chocolate. No wonder so many people are so very heavy here. (I’m so glad I got myself outta that bind – I used to weigh 300 pounds.) This has been an interesting experiment so far. We got a rental car, and we’re noticing how convenient it is after two years of carlessness. But the car has the feeling of being a time machine, and all this store stuff is a time machine, because this certainly ain’t sustainable. 
Candy aisle in Target, photo by lady |
As necessities get more expensive, the junk gets cheaper. Wal-Mart and McDonalds stocks are through the roof while all the others are in the red. It’s almost as if people buy more crap when they’re depressed or distressed from not being able to afford better crap. More is better or less is best?
or…
More or less, it’s all crap.