That’s it, it’s official, eating at a restaurant is now a
privilege to be enjoyed exclusively by the rich. Since my last meal out at a
pub style restaurant cost more than seventy-five dollars for dreary, mediocre
food, I have nixed the habit of going out to eat from my standard routine.
Goodbye, going out to eat.
It’s a shame for at least two reasons. First, I tip well and
never complain, so the restaurant industry will miss my patronage. Second, I’m
a terrible cook, and I regard cooking as a chore. Maybe it means I’m spoiled
rotten, but I enjoyed the occasional break.
It is important to note that restaurants are not raising
prices to absurd levels because they must, they are doing it because they can. Though
I’m not an economist (because if I were I’d be able to afford eating-out still),
the record profits of the industry seem to support this point. If restaurants are merely raising prices
because of “food and labor costs”, why the increase in profits? It can’t be
entirely due to industry growth. It seems to me that a large chunk of my seventy-five-dollar
meal went into the pockets of wealthy people. Call me greedy, but I’m not fond
of giving hand-outs to the rich.
This record increase in profits has been lauded as a good
thing, since it so generously created working-class jobs. However, these
reports say nothing about quality of life. What about all the working-class
people who enjoyed going out to eat occasionally and can no longer? Furthermore, restaurant employees are now
servants to the aristocracy. That seems un-American to me.
The record profits also say something else: either there are
so many rich people around that this is enough to prop up the restaurant
industry, or people are suckers. If the former is the case, then I guess a good
portion of America, despite the claims of some, is doing great. If the latter
is the case, then the wide-spread passivity seems disappointing. Aren’t
Americans rugged individualists who don’t get taken advantage of? Of course it could be a bit of both, but
either way our willingness to participate in this blatant price-gouging is
simply enabling bad behavior. A little tough love might do the trick!
Meanwhile, back at the homestead, this citizen will be
pulling up the proverbial bootstraps. For example, on nights when I used to go
out, I’ll just refuse to cook. Instead, I’ll eat a can of beans. Or perhaps
I’ll find a nice stone, put it in a pot, and invite my neighbors to bring a
vegetable. We’ll make stone soup.
Create your own signs.
Don't listen to silly rhymes
Commit your own crimes.
People have become corporations.
We must have a brand, a clever name, a logo
a mug, a pen, a polo.
I made a sign for earth day.
All the words were crooked.
“People have become corporations,” it read
But no one understood it.
The Last Frontier
A pretty actress must play the ugly role,
Some baggy clothes and glasses and, naturally, she’s droll.
It’s quite okay for ugly girls to get harassed by men.
Everyone is so impressed when they deign to flirt with them.
Later in the movie the ugly girl will win.
And we all learn that beauty only goes as deep as skin.
But, brace yourself for the surprise, it turns out all
along,
All she needed was some contacts, a smile and a thong.
Too Many Signs
The radical environmentalists talked reciprocity
Post positive they were
On contemplative ecology.
Meanwhile, out on the sidewalk, the temperature is jumping
All is fried with pesticide and the oil wells keep pumping,
Bill Nye still wears his bow tie and he tells us what’s in
store
We shake our heads this way or that, then go off to do our
chores.
They’re building a new gas station down the street, I saw.
They’ll have to move the lot two feet, to comply with the
wetland law.
It’s mid-June, the flowers bloom, but nothing much stops
by,
The Mosquito Squad is cited, for putting up too many signs.
