What Recession?

I fully admit that I do not watch and/or read the news on a regular basis. For the most part it is just a repeat of the same horrible things happening all over the place and I would much rather not be brought down by the soul crushingness of it all. Of course I know the basics of what is going on in the world, as there is no way to completely ignore all of this. But I don't need to know which person was killed on what street corner or who's house burnt down. And it is impossible to ignore the economic crisis that is facing America today. But in some respects, it is easy to ignore. And it's made easy if you started with nothing.

This does not include all those people who have been laid off from there jobs due to their previous employers financial woes. They may have had nothing before, but they really have nothing now. And I do feel bad for them.

But as a person with no assets that any bank would generally care about, I'm not feeling any kind of pressure from this diminished economy. I wasn't planning on applying for any new credit cards, so it doesn't bother me one bit that I probably wouldn't get one anyway. I have no car payment, house payment, or any dependents to worry about. I own no stocks and have no money otherwise associated with the stock market. I am totally unaffected by the tumultuous market as it continues to hemorrhage one way or the other seemingly daily. Again, I don't know exactly, cause I don't check it all that often.

I have lived a blessed life. In so much as I have never felt the burden of having to pinch pennies and work off of a strict budget. I have done some stupid things with money, and have learned from those mistakes. I don't keep a ledger of my bank account down to the penny, but I know roughly how much money is in the account. I know how much the bills are going to run, and can plan ahead and know not to spend. I live a relatively free economic life. Not to say that all couldn't change any time, and will likely when we attempt to buy our first home this coming summer. But from all accounts that I can find it is a GOOD time for us to buy.

All this preamble takes me to an experience I had last week that makes me wonder sometimes about peoples capacity to understand their own situations. On the way home from school one day I was formulating a grocery list in my head. I knew we needed a few things for around the house, as well as something for dinner that night. I decided to go to a Kroger that I don't normally go to on my way home. It was about noon and the store was relatively quiet. There was a bit of snow on the ground and my guess was that between the semi-remoteness of this particular store and the fact that most people had already stocked up on there grocery needs prior to the snow falling, I figured I would be in and out quickly. I quickly made my way through the store and was ready to check out. I had roughly 20 items in my cart and made my way to the front of the store.

There were only two lanes open, and the first one I came upon had a woman who had 2 carts full to the brim ready to start unloading. I obviously wasn't going to get in line behind her. The only other line had two large women who were in the midst of unpacking 2 large carts of their own. How in the world could I have timed this worse? I took so lice in the fact that they had already unpacked and scanned one cart, and the second was almost empty and up on the line. I figured that this was as good as it was going to get, so I settled in to the waiting process.

Now, let me clear up a few things before I continue. When I describe these two ladies as large, don't be confused. When I address someone as large, I put them on at least the same size scale as myself or bigger. And these ladies were bigger than I. They were also incredibly disproportionate in that they resembled Grimmace. This is only relevant because while the checker continued to scan their seemingly unending supply of foodstuffs from the cart, the two ladies were going on about how they wanted something to drink. So lady A went to get lady B a soda from a few lanes down. On her way back she decided that the candy bars that were displayed were to good to pass up and grabbed 6. She casually threw those on the line along with the two drinks she had grabbed. She also turned to her friend and grabbed a bag of sun chips off the rack and held them up and kinda cocked her head in that familiar "how about this?" move that is universal. Lady B then shrugged and nodded in that equally universal "Why the fuck not" move. By this time all their groceries had been loaded up on the line and there was enough room for me to begin unloading my own cart on the line.

Just as I finished putting the last of my items up on the line Lady A was staring at the total screen and looked a little frightened. She turned to Lady B and said something like "It's up to 200 already" and let out a nervous giggle. I began to have a small sinking feeling. As the cashier finally rang up the end of the 2 cart fiasco in waiting, she announced the total as $387.53. Both the ladies reacted as if there had to be some kind of miscalculation because they could only spend $300 and there must be a mistake. The cashier just stood there as stone faced as she could. I got the feeling this was a regular occurrence for her in her job. I attempted to be as casual as possible as I fumed internally at how idiotic this situation was.

The two ladies then began the almost 10 minute process of removing items from there now bagged groceries and having them removed from there bill. They started with two packages of high end ice cream snacks, followed by the 6 candy bars and chips that were added at the last minute. A few TV dinners and microwavable snacks were also given the boot, as well as a huge bag of "Catfish Nuggets" which looked to be just frozen squirrel meat that had freezer burn. And still that wasn't enough. There was still $20 pounds of fat to trim before this unending hell would cease to exist. Exasperated, the two continued to dig through there carts trying to figure out what they could "spare" to get to there total. FINALLY they took enough off to reach the new total of $300.73 and after lady A loudly exclaimed "ARE YOU KIDDING ME", Lady B stepped in and swiped her card and they quickly exited. The checker and bagger said nothing through all of this, but were visibly annoyed and relieved once they left. I quickly stepped up to line and proudly exclaimed "I'm paying for all of my stuff today!" The checker smiled and laughed and quickly rang me up and I was on my way.

I am sharing this story because it illustrates my point. I live a good life. I can spend money with relative ease, but I know my limits. I knew I couldn't go into the store and decide to buy all kinds of shit for close to $400 cause I couldn't afford it. If I was in a different situation and needed to count my pennies and squeeze the value out of every last cent, I would. I wouldn't blindly go to the store and just start filling my cart with whatever shit looks good, and then some more impulse shit on top of that.

It's not uncommon for me to see people at the grocery carrying around a calculator with them and there stacks of coupons writing down what looks like novels while they are shopping. And they are doing there part to stretch their money where they can. They are comparing prices, calculating how much they are spending, and deducting there coupons to there utmost value. They are not surprised when the cashier announces there total, as they already know what it is. If I was forced into that situation, I would be doing the same thing.

I know the value of the dollar. I just happen to value different things than most that those dollars can buy. But I will NEVER be in the position where I have to start taking off items from my already scanned items because I have overspent. Never.

And those two fucking bitches still got there cokes.