With the wake of the recent election upon us, I was reminded
how a recent trip to Costco turned into a very interesting human experiment.
My friend Stephen and I meet for lunch approximately once a
week. Sometimes it’s just me and him,
other times we have other friends join us.
These lunches typically include talk of politics, work situations, book
club, trips, etc.
One morning Stephen called me up and said he needed to run
down to Costco and would I join him. We’d
get lunch there. Now it’s very difficult
for me to pass up a $1.50 (WITH DRINK!) Costco hot dog and I jumped at the
chance.
There was only one slight problem – we were going to Costco
to buy stuff – not just have lunch. That
meant shopping and Costco in the middle of the day (hell most any time) is
filled with people and this meant wandering the store while Stephen picked out
food for a party he was having (nice cheeses, a case of Pellegrino, etc.) . If I was going to have to go shopping then,
hell, I was going to take advantage of that.
So I bought me a big bag of their low-salt kettle potato chips. These are very high on the “yummy” scale and
they’re also something I’m not supposed to buy and bring home because Miriam
finds that she eats them...all.
Bought? Yes. Taking them home? No. I
would buy them for work and share them with my co-workers.
Yummy Lightly Salted Goodness
Back to work, I opened the bag and placed them on the
counter in the kitchen. I took a
handful, closed the bag with a binder clip (it’s a big bag!) and snacked on
them at my desk.
A little while later I walked by the kitchen and there was
the bag on the counter and it was open.
Someone had taken some and left the bag open, so I sealed the bag (after
taking a few more) and went on my way.
An hour later or so I walk by and the bag is open again. Once again I went in and sealed the bag. Let me remind you: IT’S A BIG BAG and, of course, if you leave
it open – they’re going to go stale.
This continued the rest of the afternoon. See open bag, close open bag. See open bag, close open bag. See open bag...you get the point.
It was at this point that I realized that an experiment was
taking place. Now, granted, I had no
idea who was leaving the bag open but I assumed it was the attorneys I work
with. For a long while we had an
attorney who would leave the wrapper to the microwave popcorn on the counter
and one of us staff members would end up throwing it away. When we finally brought this up to the
attorney he literally had no clue he was doing this. Somewhere in his world someone would come
along and throw it away (which, of course, someone was doing). Once we mentioned this he clued in and began
throwing away the wrapper...but it was the simple fact that he didn’t realize
he was doing this that made me wonder.
Back to the chips.
This, too, was making me wonder.
Why was it that I was so concerned about the potato chips going stale
but they weren’t concerned about it? I
mulled that around in my brain for awhile and then finally came to a
conclusion: They didn’t care because
they didn’t have to care. Simply: A $5 bag of potato chips is no big deal to
them. They make good money (deservedly
so and I love the people I work with) and a $5 bag of chips isn’t important to
them. Why is it important to me? It’s a $5 bag of potato chips that I don’t
want to go stale so that I, and the others around me, can enjoy them to their
non-stale fullest. Of course if I saw
the person leaving the bag open and said:
“Oh, hey, could you close the bag when you’re done?” They probably wouldn’t even realize they were
leaving the bag open.
To tie this into this national election – I’ve been thinking
about the issues that face this country and our politicians we elect to the
process.
If we look at core issues facing this country, I would say
that these are the top ten (in no particular order):
1.
Job Creation
2.
Education
3.
Affordable Health Care
4.
Outside Threats to Our Safety
5.
Women’s Reproductive Rights
6.
Gun Control – or lack thereof
7.
Income Inequality
8.
Environment
9.
Infrastructure Issues
10. Equal
Rights
"What's a wealthy politician to do?"
Now compare those issues with this information from the
non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics (from January 2014):
The wealthiest member of Congress? That's Rep. Darrell Issa, a California Republican, who had a net worth between $330 and $598 million.
The reports found that there wasn't much distinction between the two parties – congressional Democrats had a median net worth of $1.04 million as compared to about $1 million for Republicans. In both cases, the averages are up from last year, when the numbers were $990,000 and $907,000, respectively.
Let us not forget that, also, our politicians are given
typical perks of their jobs: staff,
health care, transportation, protection, etc.
In comparing the top 10 issues to the fact that the median
net worth of our politicians is over $1 million – something becomes
increasingly clear – at least to me.
Before, though, you start bashing me on “wealth v. poor”
there is some HOPE that the politicians we elect in this country will have some
basic understanding of where they (or their parents) came from. We’ve all heard about how John Boehner lived
above a bar. Most recently I heard
McConnell suffered from childhood polio.
But I’ve also heard how McConnell inherited his millions. John Kerry married the heiress to the Heinz
empire. This is not GOP v. DEMS this is
just stating a very clear and reasonable fact:
They’re all, pretty much wealthy and you and I are, well, not.
Rich guy
Rich guy with REALLY rich wife (it's probably not a coincidence that her coat is Ketchup colored)
Then if you compare the issues facing this country like
healthcare, reproductive rights, income inequality, the environment, etc. and
wonder why the elected official doesn’t seem to care it’s simply because they
don’t have to. There HAS to be some disconnect going on between the lives and reality of our elected officials and to those to whom they serve.
A few months back a storage facility for some treatment
plant dumped a bunch of waste into a stream that provided drinking water for a
community. The owner of the company,
some wealthy guy, came on TV to talk about it and, in the process of talking,
took a drink out of a bottle of water.
It subtly made my point. Why did
he care about the community? He didn’t - he was actually from a foreign country. Besides he can buy all the clean bottled water he
wants – but what of the poor and hurting who can’t? Well, for that guy, “not his monkey, not his
circus” and off into his private jet he goes.
We have ten bags of potato chips open. We all have various levels of concern over those chips getting stale and we have many wealthy politicians who don’t care because
they don’t have to.
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