13 August 2002 ~ Mountain Dew tastes like shit...

Got my paycheck on Friday. Have been maintaining, for about a month up until this point, an almost complete refusal to acknowledge consumerist society.

It's pretty easy, really. You just have to find entertainment in shit that's usually sort of boring. You also have to trust that you're not going to get any diseases from dumpster-furniture or giveaway yarn. Aside from food, no, I have not purchased anything, from any store. Haven't even shoplifted. (Okay, I was with Louise once when she shoplifted, but that didn't count...) Oh, and a blank tape. I bought a blank audio cassette because I'm sick of all my music, and I thought I'd tape Fred on Sunday night.

I'm wondering how much longer I can make this last. There's a CD I'm really kinda craving, and I ordered it weeks ago, and it SHOULD be in by now... Do I pick it up with next week's paycheck? Should I not torture myself about it?

It's kinda funny, how NOTHING is really necessary. All these things you THINK are so important. All these things that are marketed at you as being necessary for survival... well... most of them aren't... Mountain Dew? Do you REALLY need Mountain Dew? Pizza Hut pizza? New pair of Sketchers? Lots of useless pieces of shit from J.C. Penney's? Mascara?

(I'm even willing to compromise and say that toilet paper, soap, shampoo, and "feminine hygiene" products (aka twatrags) are necessary for survival. At very least, they're necessary for a relatively high standard of cleanliness. Liberal though I may be, I'm not ready to be a "dirty" hippie with unwashed dreadlocks and crusty, nasty stuff on my body... I mean, besides, my hair wouldn't dreadlock if I paid it to...)

Now, I'm working in retail at present, which involves ringing up people's purchases. And I'm routinely shocked at the sort of junk people put on my counter. They put this pile of crap in front of me and look at me expectantly, and I have to bite my lip and smile, and ask pleasantly, "wow, it doesn't seem like it should be back-to-school time already! Hasn't the summer just flown by!?" And so I feel like a total fraud, although I think I'm pretty damned good at being an advertisement when I'd really like to be a revolutionary. If I COULD, I'd say: "Wow, those are the ugliest, cheapest pair of fake-sapphire earrings ever. Don't you know that the only people who wear things like that are Office Girls in mortgage offices who are trying to look just like everybody else? And pardon me, but you look like a nice, intelligent individual. Don't you think you can do a little bit better than that? I mean, also, you can find shit EXACTLY like this at any old garage sale you went to. Or, what the hell; you could wait until Monday when all the garage sales are over with, and get the same damn things for free when the garage sale people throw all the un-bought stuff into their trash..."

Sorry, I just can't see myself paying for TRASH. And I STILL don't understand why other people do it.

I don't know. Maybe it's just me.

When I was a kid, my parents were not the indulgent sort as far as material pieces of crap, and for that, I really must commend them. They did do a lot of dumb things, raising my brothers and me, but now, still feeling kind of broke, and definitely feeling kind of radical, I appreciate knowing that a stick can be the best toy in the world. As I've said before, rocks and sticks and an old metal mailbox were my favorite toys growing up. I think that sort of upbringing made me a more creative person. And creative people can survive in this world without mascara, Mountain Dew, Sketchers, new Levi's, or the latest dumbass Milton-Bradley game.

(Also, my parents were cheapskates, I think, but it all worked out for the best...)

Some things, I've found, that actually ARE indispensible:

*Books. Readily available on 8th-ish Avenue, next to the post office, for free, at the Timberland Library. They'll even hook you up with a free card. Fucken amazing, these library places. Also, readily available at low prices at Orca Books, or Browser's Books, both downtown in Oly. Sure, they'll be used, and maybe a little scuffed up, but whatever. Books are important. Everybody has to have books, especially if one doesn't have a TV.

*Paper. Free, on campus, at any blue recycling container. Hell, in the computer center, most of it's blank anyway. Notebooks also available certain times of year.

*Pens. If you can't figure out how to nab yourself a free pen, I don't know how the hell you figured out how to use the internet...

*Food. Free if you have friends who take pity on you. Also free if you have friends who have money, yet don't like to cook: offer to cook for somebody who's just had a hard day's work. Then eat with them. That has almost always worked for me. Besides, you get to inflict your food onto other people's stomachs. Failing the ability to do that (if, say, you have no friends...), food is cheap in grocery stores if you don't buy brand-name stuff, assume that meat isn't necessary for life, and restrain yourself from buying Tillamook cheese and Ben & Jerry's ice cream. I'm still working on most of that. Oh yeah, and also, dandelion greens make great salads. They're going to serve you dandelion greens in pretentious restaurants anyway, so you may as well eat them out of your own yard. Seriously. And if you do it right, you can make blackberries into a three-course meal.

*Music. The easiest way to get free music is to make friends with a band. Or two bands. Or a kid with a guitar. Hell, borrow somebody's recorder, bring a couple of quarters downtown, and record the dirt-poor beggar-kids in front of the Spar. They OFFER to sing for you for a quarter or two. Plus, they're way better than most of this current top-40 shit. Bring them a cheese sandwich and they'll play all afternoon for you. Bring them a nickel bag and a bunch of them will serenade you all day and then follow you home, still singing. Other ways to obtain cheap music are: three-dollar CD's from The Baby Bok Choy Record Club, (available nation-wide); trading mix-tapes with friends and penpals (and if you don't have any friends or penpals, *I* will be your friend and penpal and trade mix-tapes with you...); or taping Fred's show every Sunday night.

*The U.S.P.S. That is, it's indispensible to me, because it's the main way I keep in contact with the rest of the world, since I have no internet connection from my house, and no phone. But whatever; for me, one stamp is the equivelent of 3.7 minutes' worth of work. Can anybody really bitch about that? Hell, you can FIND 37 cents, if you need it, by walking through gas station parking lots with your head down. Hell, just walk into a gas station and empty out their penny-pit if you're really hard-up.

...But really, kids, little pieces of shit, including but not limited to pretty much everything advertised on television, aren't ACTUALLY necessary. And it's really kind of liberating to play with your own made-up toys, to use your own self-invented tools, to smile at the bookshelf nobody knows you got out of a dumpster, and to listen to music you didn't pay for. Besides, Mountain Dew kinda tastes like shit.

~Helena*