1. So Rich You Look Poor

Who thought to take a pair of jeans, rip gaping holes at the knees with lots of dangling threads and sell the jeans at ridiculous prices? Celebrities, the very rich ones, like to be seen wearing jeans with raggedy holes. I remember a time when people who wore jeans with holes carried tin cups and asked us if we could spare some change. Not anymore. You need to be quite wealthy to wear jeans with ripped holes in the knees. Don’t think you can gash holes in your Kirkland jeans from Costco. You have to have a designer label and have paid well over one-hundred dollars for your holey jeans to be authentic.

This woman is very rich.

2. Store Discount Cards Save Money

You’re at a self-checkout stand at the grocery store trying to figure out which picture on the screen matches the grocery item. The lady next to you, also self-checking, asks, “Do you have the discount card? I don’t shop here very often, hardly ever really, and I wondered if you had a discount card so I could scan it.” You scan your discount card on her checkout screen. She excitedly says, “Thanks! I just saved two dollars.” The card allows you to pay for some items at their actual cost while providing you a happy feeling of saving. The lady next to you smiles gratefully as she leaves the store.  You notice she is wearing designer jeans with holes.

3. Charge for Grocery Store Plastic Bags

The cashier asks, “Do you want a bag?” If your answer is yes, you’re charged ten cents a bag. But you have to save money somewhere, so you say, “No, I’ll carry them to my car.” You pay for your groceries and pick up your items. You move carefully out the door holding an armload of groceries with your chin keeping everything in place. Bananas rest on your head and a jar of peanut butter rolls as you shove it with your foot, hollering, “Coming through!” What’s next? A seventy-five-cent charge for the use of the floor space next to the checkout stand? “Do you want floor space?” the cashier asks you. “Otherwise, I need to ask you to step outside. And if you want me to bring your groceries to you, that will be a five-dollar charge.”

The proper way to wear bananas on your head.

5. Tipping At Fast-Food Takeout

You’re at an Asia takeout place giving your order to the cashier. The cashier then flips her computer screen around to face you, so you can add in the tip. The screen offers choices with 18% being the lowest. Then 20%, 25% and 75%. You wonder what tip to give when you haven’t yet seen your completed order. The cashier shoots threatening glares your way. You think possibly she, or the cook, might do something unpleasant to your food if you don’t leave a nice tip. You add in a 75% tip and end up paying $52 for a cup of rice noodles with bean sprouts and tofu. The chili garlic sauce on the side wasn’t provided as promised. You had to ask for chopsticks. The noodles were only half-cooked. No wonder the tip is demanded before the food is prepared.

6. Companies Asking for Online Feedback

Your roof becomes a vacation destination for birds. They gather by the hundreds roosting and nesting and sunning themselves all day. They play bocce ball at 3 a.m. on your roof and they cackle and coo and keep you awake. You call an avian control company to set up a deterrence. Someone from the company comes out to your house to give you a “free” estimate to bird-proof your roof. He politely explains he will take pictures of the roof and send an email of the projected cost later that day. The email with the estimated cost arrives. You also get a request to rate your service in a short “five-second” survey. You give the guy from avian control five stars. The online survey then asks you how much of a tip you want to bestow on the five-star person who came out to photograph your roof? The survey also asks you to jot a few nice words about your service and post to Google. It asks for your Google password and waits for the tip. You don’t know your password, the five-seconds is over, and you have no nice words left in you.

7. What’s “In” And What’s “Out”

The fashion industry brainstormed incentives to make people buy new clothes when they don’t need new clothes. Someone had a brilliant thought. “Why don’t we shame them into buying?” Announcers on TV and online got the plan of shame going. You hear them say, “Barbie Pink is out. Butter Soft Yellow is in. If you have Skinny Jeans in your closet, pleeeze get rid of them. They are sooo yesterday. Jeans with a slight flare in the leg are in.” The shame plan tells you that anyone who is no one, and no one who wants to look like someone, must have new clothes to be like everyone. The fashion industry happily collects the profits from their winning scheme. Whatever they announce is the style of the day, people –especially celebrities who get paid–go along. If the fashion industry announced that hemorrhoids are “in”–we’d be looking at jeans with thick padding in the seat and hats in the shape of hemorrhoids. “Do you have hemorrhoids? Oh, I wish I did too!”

Bronwyn’s Thought for the Day: Be you. If you like jeans with holes, wear them. If you like skinny jeans, wear those. What other people think of you is not important.  Make some tea, sit in your garden, and enjoy knowing you saved by hauling your groceries to your car without a bag. ♥