Southern Plumbing

I am not a good shopper. I don’t mean that I am not careful about what I buy, but rather that I tend not to buy much beyond what I need. In that sense, I am not very useful to a society that expends enormous amounts of time, energy, and money trying to convince us that shopping is a valid leisure time activity, a hobby even. Our culture has convinced many of us that clothing is worth more, lots more, because of a label that’s attached to it. It convinces many of us to pay extra for the privilege of providing advertizing for the makers of that clothing by displaying that label in public. It convinces us to feel pride and self-worth because we are doing that advertizing for them. In the jargon of the marketing trade, some of us find identity in the wearing of those labels and logos. This observation is not new of course, but it is still astonishing to me that this happens and I think it’s worth reminding ourselves of the utter foolishness of this behaviour from time to time. If we don’t remind ourselves, there’s always the danger that we will start to think that this is normal. We impoverish ourselves, and make others richer, by giving our money to people who give us labels and logos in return. And we have to work for hours on end to earn the money to buy those labels. Would you shovel two feet of snow from your neighbour’s driveway if all you got in return was a label to sew onto your shirt pocket? People do precisely that every day.

I have yet to buy a shirt in this century. I buy new clothing when the old clothing wears out (or in the case of bell-bottoms, as soon as I could). I thought everyone was like this, but then I met people who bought clothing because they grew bored of the colours of their old stuff or because it had gone out of fashion. This is normal behaviour, and no one reading this is surprised that people do this. But we should be.

One result of this relative failure to adapt to the surrounding popular culture is that I can never earn a living in marketing. I have absolutely no idea what people enjoy, what they want, what they would spend their money on.

I accompanied my wife to a mall two weeks ago, and I did what I always do in malls. I looked for a bookstore, browsed for a while, bought a couple of books, and then headed for a coffee shop. I ended up walking most of length of the mall to get to that bookstore and counted seven stores dedicated to the selling of cell phones. I also passed electronic and department stores that also sell cell phones. I do not understand why everyone needs to talk on telephones so much; I would never have predicted this. Had some incompetent Board of Directors hired me to be the CEO of their electronic communications division 15 years ago, I would have cancelled cell phone development. To anyone reading this who may be considering hiring me as your CEO, my advice is to forget the idea.

Near my home is a pet grooming business that offers a web cam service. You can sit at your computer and watch your pooch’es fur being trimmed or having its toenails clipped. I would never have thought of offering that service.

Just below is a photograph of a sign here in Ottawa. It is from a homeopathic-type wellness centre, or something like that. I don’t actually know what they do, but it is the last item on their list of services that caught my eye.

It would never have occurred to me that there would be retail consumer demand for rectal douching. I associate an enema as a relief of last resort for constipation or as a preparation for other medical procedures related to our southern plumbing. In either case, the big E is something I think of as a semi-clinical procedure and not as something I would seek from a perfect stranger just for the hell of it while I’m out window-shopping on a Saturday afternoon. (Although there does seem to be a fetish interest in colonic irrigation; if you don’t know about this, try conducting a web search and prepare to be surprised.)

Economic and business reporting always mentions consumer expenditures as a fundamental aspect of economic health. Basically we‘re told that if we don’t shop, it’s bad for the country. But is that true or has it just been defined to be true by people who have a vested interest in its being true? Would you pay someone to wash out your rear exit for the good of the country’s economic health?