You'd think (silly me does anyway) that the stores would be empty. After all, didn't everybody just get everything they had pressured their loved ones into getting for them? Don't they have all year to get all the junk they don't need (or even want)? Seems like a really piss-poor way to spend a day off. Searching for that one last spot on a horizon to horizon parking lot. Zombies shuffling around in circles desperate to find that one piece of plastic Chinese shit that will complete them. Mixed amongst the herd are the frantic bargain hunters. The neediness on their panicked faces is sad, pathetic. There are no good boxing day sales anymore anyways. The current economy won't allow it. Everyone has cut everything as far as they can in a vain attempt to keep this bullshit 'consume it all' game going a little longer.
I do a lot of my shopping at the local waste transfer site. Recently I scored a really good bike, tools, motors, wheelbarrow, and electronics. Yesterday I picked up a grinder and eight lengths of 2"x10" wood. Who the hell throws away perfectly good wood like that when living on the bald-assed prairie? Sure, the shit grows on trees, but there ain't no trees for hundreds of miles. Whatever. Can't beat 'em and sure as hell ain't gonna join 'em. As they throw out perfectly good items to make room for things they will throw out next year (or sooner), I scoop up many items that are useful for free. There are a lot of projects on the old domestead and I am glad to not have to purchase everything I need.
Welcome to the new american culture, consume onto death...
ReplyDeletePiled high and deep, the refuse of outsourcing and consuming.
It boggles the mind what people just throw away.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, we don't have dumps anymore, we have "Transfer Stations" where they collect all the refuse, put it into tractor trailers or box cars and ship it two hundred miles away. You can't go digging through them. Although the folks that work there pull stuff out all the time.
This explains the popularity of "Freecycle" and Craigslist, cut out the middle man.
Radio Bloger,
ReplyDeleteNice culture eh? Our entire society is looking and acting more and more like a desparate drug addict all the time. Easy enough to do when the bankers and politicians are acting more and more like greedy dealers.
Bustednuckles,
Our transfer station is 24hr, unmanned. Cleaned out every few days, it is a new department store for me every week.
I am still trying to figure out why these stoopid forks leave all this shit behind when they leave.. Dont they have to eat and have this shit in the new place.. DF's. But alas it allows me to live off the excesses of others..
ReplyDeleteI love your grinder! I got one for Christmas this year.
ReplyDeleteI'm lucky in that I have some friends and family who are completely consumer driven. After Christmas, many of them were complaining "Now, I need to find places to store all this stuff!" and I thought, well, if you didn't need it and don't have a place to put it, why did you ask for it or buy it? If I used them, I could have new electric appliances every year. My clothing gets replaced regularly because I don't give a darn about "last year's style".
The few times Mr. Doom and I go to malls or big stores, we wander around and make fun of the overpriced, unnecessary consumer goods we see. "Hey, hon, want a remote control programmable back massager with built in internet?" (Dear god, someone tell me that I haven't just created a stupid product that actually exists)
Trash,
ReplyDelete"Living off the excess of others". Great tag line, I love it. I've picked up everything from computers to reading glasses, shovels to breaker boxes. And I only rarely get to town.
Canadian Doomer,
Now you've gone and done it. Next some brainiac will be linking those back messagers to all the social media sites and soemone else will make an iphone app to send rubs to each other instead of pokes.
Like you, Mrs Mud and I avoid the malls, but when we do get there we are awe struck by the idiocy of the people, products and place itself.