Sometimes you have to buy things that are just no fun to shop for.
Gasoline is one. It would be nice not to have to do that every week or so. (Naturally, this statement brings out the EV owners, but you can cry to me in four years when you have to buy a $27,000 battery replacement).
Tires. There’s another one. (And one that our EV friends can still enjoy). You can rejoice to find a tire for $89 and then drop your jaw when you buy a full set and drop nearly $500 when taxes, road hazard plan and disposal fees are calculated. And that’s for bottom-tier tires…
Insurance? Oy, have you noticed that you can’t watch YouTube without being bombarded by insurance company ads? Or that companies like Farmer’s and Allstate hire well-known, and in the case of Farmers, Oscar-winning actors as spokesmen? And who pays for that? You do. But insurance… gotta have it. Who else is going to raise your rates when you make one claim?
Underwear. Yeah, can’t do without, unless you’re a Scotsman and rock a kilt every day. But most of us do not want to look like King Charles III on holiday and have to schlep over to the store for some new intimate duds every so often.
Which brings us to today’s story. Yes, underwear. More to the point, it’s value.
As the picture here will attest, the value of tighty-whities, boxers and even T-shirts appears to have reached the heights. Yes, that’s a locked glass case protecting those Fruit-of-the-Looms at a Wal-Mart.
Imagine deciding, on the spur of the moment, to take some personal time and grab these necessities only to find you cannot select your own merchandise.
And seeing all this cotton behind glass makes you wonder if Hanes sold out to Rolex and Mercedes-Benz bought out Jockeys.
Adding insult to the spectacle is the requirement to push a button to alert a Wal Mart employee to come to your rescue.
Lo, and behold, a few moments later, just such an employee appears, disproving the long-held theory that Wal Mart actually has no employees roaming the aisles willing to help customers. But I digress.
She approaches and asks which package I want to buy.
I, being the shy type and feeling very infantile at the moment, demur and simply ask her to open the case so I can peruse the exotic selection, grab what I need and be on my way.
Not so fast. No can do.
She informs me she has to grab what I point to and walk all the way with me to the cash register.
Which we proceed to do.
I felt like I was going to the principal’s office. Somehow, I had committed more than a faux pas, I was guilty of… something. Except I wasn’t, of course. It was others who bore the guilt.
When my incredulity was overwhelming I asked (nicely) why on Earth men’s undershorts are locked behind glass.
She pleasantly if ruefully answered that without that glass, the men’s underwear section would be picked clean by shoplifters in, uh, short order. No underwear would mean this Wal-Mart has gone commando.
And that simply will not do.
As we trudged to the front and I felt like some trollop taking the walk of shame, I noticed what is not behind locked glass at the Wal-Mart.
Women’s “unmentionables” like bras (sorry, I mentioned one) and other apparel, were - and are - at risk of liberation by gangs of panty thieves. But apparently panty-raids went out of fashion after the 1950s. No locks here.
Also unburdened by added security: dress shirts, dress slacks, um…dresses. Marvel character tee-shirts, Halloween candy, anti-perspirant, anti-diarrheal medicine, computer paper, toilet paper, cat food, dog food, bird food, TV screens - lots and lots of TV screens, baby oil, motor oil and olive oil (don’t mix them up), rib-eye steak, salmon steak, steak tartare, tartar sauce, spaghetti sauce and the most expensive “sauce” of all - tequila! - were all unprotected from the grabby hands of the rapacious underwear hordes!
With this in mind, tell me again how we’re getting better at being human beings. Tell me once again how we’re progressing towards utopia. Tell me again how humankind is basically good when you can’t buy $11 worth of underwear without an escort!
I tell ya folks, I think our remaining time on Earth is brief.
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