It's been a long time since I took an economics course. All I remember about it is that they don't call it the "dismal science" for nuttin'. Let me suggest another approach to the subject. Forget about the hectic noise of the big city, the stop-and-go traffic, and the endless running around to buy crap, most of which is superfluous.
Imagine taking it all away. Simplicity, bliss? Not so fast. Your first couple hours in a really small town pound it into you how difficult it is to get anything done. What if you have something as trivial as a flat tire? Will you have to call your towing service and get towed 200 miles to Phoenix or Albuquerque?
Are any of their stores serious about doing business? Maybe they are just tax write-offs. Except that the place doesn't look high-income-enough to need tax write-offs.
Can you find a business that is open the same hours two days in a row? I actually bring a pen and clipboard to write down the complex schedule of hours when the silly place is actually open.
My cellphone doesn't work, but the internet does. It seems to be impossible to throw away a simple grocery sack of kitchen trash, because there are no trashcans in town! At least it is easy to find water in mountain towns.
There are times when I feel like giving up. Let them board the place up. Maybe local yokels wouldn't even care, until they closed their post office.
Clearly the place is impoverished, and yet you see more smokers around than anywhere else. Are 'smokes' covered by EBT cards? Their mental life is pretty much limited to the Bahbll and satellite television.
But it only gets so bad before you hit bottom. Then you start adapting. That is what makes this an 'authentic' experience. You start to appreciate how flexible a human being can be if they have to be. You really can buy a little food at the grocery store if you stop trying to impose city-ish notions on them.
The town even had a hardware/lumber store. Home Depot it isn't. I stopped at the section for tapes and adhesives, and started to imagine what kind of things I could fix with this tape and that adhesive.
Today I was in the grocery store and grinned from ear to ear when I saw a key-making machine at work.
The closer you look, the less hopeless it seems. You start to see 'necessities' as falling into sub-categories: mere conventionalities; conveniences; occasional versus immediate; toys, status symbols, and entertainments.
Better yet, life seems less regulated and bureaucratic. Interactions between individuals seem more relaxed. Of course you don't want to ruin that by fostering exaggerated, nostalgic sentimentalisms about small town people.
Imagine taking it all away. Simplicity, bliss? Not so fast. Your first couple hours in a really small town pound it into you how difficult it is to get anything done. What if you have something as trivial as a flat tire? Will you have to call your towing service and get towed 200 miles to Phoenix or Albuquerque?
Are any of their stores serious about doing business? Maybe they are just tax write-offs. Except that the place doesn't look high-income-enough to need tax write-offs.
Can you find a business that is open the same hours two days in a row? I actually bring a pen and clipboard to write down the complex schedule of hours when the silly place is actually open.
My cellphone doesn't work, but the internet does. It seems to be impossible to throw away a simple grocery sack of kitchen trash, because there are no trashcans in town! At least it is easy to find water in mountain towns.
There are times when I feel like giving up. Let them board the place up. Maybe local yokels wouldn't even care, until they closed their post office.
Clearly the place is impoverished, and yet you see more smokers around than anywhere else. Are 'smokes' covered by EBT cards? Their mental life is pretty much limited to the Bahbll and satellite television.
But it only gets so bad before you hit bottom. Then you start adapting. That is what makes this an 'authentic' experience. You start to appreciate how flexible a human being can be if they have to be. You really can buy a little food at the grocery store if you stop trying to impose city-ish notions on them.
The town even had a hardware/lumber store. Home Depot it isn't. I stopped at the section for tapes and adhesives, and started to imagine what kind of things I could fix with this tape and that adhesive.
Today I was in the grocery store and grinned from ear to ear when I saw a key-making machine at work.
The closer you look, the less hopeless it seems. You start to see 'necessities' as falling into sub-categories: mere conventionalities; conveniences; occasional versus immediate; toys, status symbols, and entertainments.
Better yet, life seems less regulated and bureaucratic. Interactions between individuals seem more relaxed. Of course you don't want to ruin that by fostering exaggerated, nostalgic sentimentalisms about small town people.
Comments
I do feel a little stressed at times when I am the 5th car from the stop light needing to make a left hand turn. :)
Sometimes people come up with innovations. Here, the owner of a motel/laundromat/restaurant sends a van out to the Continental Divide Trail, 35 miles away, to drag hikers back to town for a night of rest/food/internet.
My experience has been the same. However, I don't bother writing down the schedule of hours of operation because small town businesses are a lot like businesses in Mexico and Bulgaria - they open when they open and they close when they close.