Tears fall like rain
Saturday, May 3, 2008
The Washington Post relates the saddest story ever told:
- The last thing Marti Tracy wants to do on a Saturday is clip coupons. But last month the 34-year-old Bowie resident felt she no longer had a choice. She'd already given up organic meat and decided to buy organic milk only for her 2-year-old son, not for the whole family.
- Tracy and her partner also stopped buying the cereals they like in favor of whatever was on sale; stopped picking up convenient single-size packs of juice, water or crackers; and, in order to save gas, stopped going to multiple stores. "I find the whole thing a huge hassle, but I've reached a tipping point," said Tracy, a government human resources specialist...
How can one not be sympathetic to the plight of this federal government HR drone? She can no longer afford single packets of crackers, but must suffer with boxes where the crackers are packed together like Irish in a Boston settlement house. She has given up eating only the finest baby cows, dew picked and flown from Seattle, cleansed in the finest quality spring water, lightly killed, and then sealed in a succulent Swiss quintuple smooth treble cream milk chocolate envelope and lovingly frosted with glucose*, and now has to eat regular old hamburger like a commoner. Can you hear the violins? Me, neither. Weird.
You know, there are going to be plenty of hard-luck stories before this noxious experiment in Wall Street Finance is all over. And the press will doubtless be filled with them, not just because they are news but because they provide the traditional warm-up for the Progressive national anthem, "Why Isn't The Government Doing Anything About This?" But the Washington Post is not off to a very auspicious beginning if they expect people in flyover country to do anything but laugh at stories like these. Are they really that out of touch? Or is it a double-ironic commentary on how little actual suffering there is in America?
*"Don't you even take the bones out?"
Lawrence.com blogs are collections of short, frequently updated posts by members of the Lawrence community. Blog writers, and comment posters, are solely responsible for what they say. (Please take the time to read our full policy.)
If you're interested in writing a blog on lawrence.com, send us a couple of sample entries.
Sera Cahoone :: Pursuing a country-noir muse speckled with reflective acoustic numbers, soft drums, violin, banjo, and pedal steel, this Seattle songwriter calls to mind twilight mood-setters like Cowboy Junkies and Mazzy Star ... More info
- Keith Martin / Monday's Millionaires (early all-ages patio show)
- HOT FEST: Helping Others Together
- Reception for Tim Pennington art show
Comments
lawrence.com does not necessarily agree with comments posted below - responsibility lies with the relevant user alone. Read our full policy
Posted by DOTDOT (anonymous) on May 4, 2008 at 1:10 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Lightly killed.
Posted by El_Borak (Bill Hoyt) on May 4, 2008 at 9:43 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Not to mention organically.
Posted by DOTDOT (anonymous) on May 4, 2008 at 11:15 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Gently transcended.
Posted by OtherJoel (anonymous) on May 4, 2008 at 12:09 p.m. (Suggest removal)
This reminds me of an article I read about how Starbucks has made the decision not to close stores, but to slow their expansion -- the horror!
To me, the implication here, though, is that some people have realized that a daily $5 latte is something they could live without. Which is kind of encouraging in a way -- that we still have a way to fall before things get really bad.
Posted by mitzibel (Misty Nuckolls) on May 4, 2008 at 6:08 p.m. (Suggest removal)
A week or so ago the Daily Mail ran a piece extolling the fashion-conscious penny-pincher to scout for Chanel evening wear at consignment shops rather than buying it new.
At least the kinds of ladies who give a shit about that are too botoxed to cry much.
Posted by ladylaw (Terry Bush) on May 5, 2008 at 9:50 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Ah. Poor miserable plutocrat.
I truly believe a DEPRESSION is coming (not just recession) and that we are likely to see situations similar to those in the last GREAT DRESSION before this economic situation sorts itself out. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depre...
So that's depressing. No pun intended.
However, it may - as with a lot of things - be all for the good in the end. Going through such times might help strengthen our society if more people eventually learn to live more frugally or to appreciate what they already have.
I'll try to keep those happy results in mind if/when I have 5-6 more people living in my 3 bedroom home, my back yard lawn is long-gone in favor of vegetable farming (and we haul water for it from the near-by run-off canal), we have one car for 10 people, and the cats have been turned outside to fend for themselves (if we haven't eating them already).
Posted by bloozman (anonymous) on May 5, 2008 at 1:24 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Cats taste like chicken.
Posted by lazz (anonymous) on May 5, 2008 at 3:23 p.m. (Suggest removal)
http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.co...
see No. 6. though I suspect Marti Tracy and her family probably qualify on a lot more counts than just that one ...
as for having to suffer the indignity of crackers by the box ... the horror is just too much to imagine ...
Posted by El_Borak (Bill Hoyt) on May 5, 2008 at 3:26 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Bloozman: there can be too much of a good thing:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080505/ap_o...
that's a lot of chicken...
Posted by DOTDOT (anonymous) on May 5, 2008 at 8:44 p.m. (Suggest removal)
"...from the near-by run-off canal."
LL, if that's the one I'm thinking about, then all this time I've been calling it a drainage ditch. If we start drinking out of it, I like
"runoff canal" much better, although I will try to forget that the water filters through the mud in my back yard before it makes its way over there.
Post a comment
(Requires free lawrence.com registration.)