Jolt Country

I've been getting my hair cut at the same place for 15 years. About five years ago, the place moved from 15 minutes away from my house to 25 minutes away. They also raise their prices a dollar or two every other year. During my drive to the new place I pass four or five haircutting chains, all of which offer cheaper haircuts than the place I've been going to. Whenever I consider trying one of those new places, I feel a little bit of guilt. Surely it's worth spending an extra few bucks to support a local business? On the other side, I feel a little foolish for spending more time and gasoline just to also pay more for a haircut.

Do you prefer to shop locally? Could you care less about where your goods and services come from? The poll-loving denizens of Jolt Country want to hear from you!

You guys might think this is easy, but it requires a lot of thought and planning to create content no one will respond to. Anyone can make a post that, if nothing else, Paul will fact check or add a song lyric to. Creating a post no one will touch requires elevating one's mind to a plane of existence most of you will never know. If this were a bakery, it would be stacks of Styrofoam decorated to look like a cake and destined to sit in a display case where couples holding hands will comment on how beautiful it is. She can't afford to pay for such a cake; he already knocked up her sister but is afraid to tell her. They will get married because she thinks having a child will bring them closer together. They will have white cupcakes at the wedding reception because her aunt was supposed to bake a cake but the heating element went out on her oven. When she throws her bouquet, her sister catches it and winks at the groom. Somehow the display cake at the bakery knows all of this and smiles.

We voted! Whaddya want?!

You know what it takes to be in the polling game? Do you know what it takes?



It takes BRASS BALLS.

A.B.C.

Always be cakin'.

My fault. I sometimes check the site and don't get back to write replies.

So I had a story I probably have told before. I bought a musical keyboard in 1999 or so. Not really a lot of ways to buy it online, but it was possible. There were sites.

I go into the shop at Fort Collins and see a beautiful Roland keyboard. Guy running the place has a suit on and is a musician. Older fella. Starts playing the keyboard. If you have heard my band and heard my attempt at the keys it would not surprise you how much better this dude was.

He said the keyboard was $400. I was not making a lot of money in 1999 and 400 bucks was a lot more. I bought it. Probably 5% sales tax back then.

Went home and did some digging.... it could be purchased, same thing brand new, for $300 online.

So I dunno. That experience obviously had an effect on me. There are deals even back then where you could save 25%. I didn't live in Fort Collins for more than a couple years, so saving LOCAL BIZNESS wasn't that important to me.

I also tried a thing with the comic book shop in Fort Collins. I was going to get subscriptions to comics through the comic store. Awesome! So the comics would come to the store each month and once a month I would pop in and have my comics saved and buy 'em. So that works for two months. LOCAL BUSINESS!

Third month the old man gets my comics for me and I look through them and Cerebus by Dave Sim is in the pile of 3 or 4 comics. Now. I have nothing against Cerebus. Got nothing against Mr. Sim. Had not heard of Cerebus at that point.

It was absolutely, 100% not a comic I was trying to get saved for me.

I explain this to the old man running the shop and he ARGUES with me. "No, you definitely asked for this one." I said, again, I had never heard of Cerebus and I absolutely did not ask him to save it for me. He wouldn't even look me in the eye, just kept reassuring ... someone - himself? That I definitely asked for it to be saved.

I was a different person 20+ years ago. I ended up buying the 4 comics from the guy, 3 of which I actually asked for, and took Cerebus home. I don't think I still have it and there is nothing particularly wrong with that title, but Jesus Fucking Christ, this is what I get for trying to support some mom and pop shop locally. How the Christ does the guy not have this shit written down? It was 1999 but I am pretty sure there was EXCEL. "Hey, you asked on blah blah date." "Oh, that wasn't me." "Oh, my bad, I had written it down in the wrong row. Sorry!" Or even - CHRIST - if I had CHANGED MY MIND you don't sit there and argue with me.

So I got home, stewed and then called up and canceled the holding of any more comics. I think. I might have just let the douchebag continue to hold 'em and let him figure it out. I think the place went out of business.

I guess that is the thing, I have been fucked over by internet businesses many, many more times but there is something that enrages me when someone I look dead in the eye starts pulling this shit. I guess my answer to this question is that I will shop local if I think of it, or if I am out. Any big purchase I take a look online to see what the deal is. We have a Wal-Mart where I live and no real options for a local grocer. I guess that is on people like me. Wal-Mart somehow got out of paying for health insurance for their workers even though they take in billions in profit and they just pass that along to the rest of us. So while decisions like the ones I make are the problem, especially multiplied by millions, I don't see how we fix it.

Also imma stop checking for new posts if I'm not prepared to reply.

My friend's brother owns a small music store. In his store he carries vinyl records, t-shirts, and a few guitars. Everything he sells is twice as expensive as you could find it online. When I mentioned this to my friend she told me that his prices are high because he has to pay rent, utilities, and employees. She went further to say that it is people's responsibility to pay those prices because not only are they paying local taxes, but that they're keeping local people employed.

I can tell you this, first hand. 3 months into my parents' 12 month lease on their computer store, Walmart decided to also start selling computer software. Walmart's software prices were lower than my parents' whole prices. It was literally cheaper for my dad to drive over to Walmart, buy games of the shelf, bring them back to the store and sell it. I guess that would have worked if they hadn't already purchased a big chunk of inventory that they had to sell. I came home many times to find my dad at the table with his head in his hands, trying to figure out how they were going to avoid bankruptcy. There certainly wasn't any "shop local" loyalty for them back then. Well there was one shoplifter that kept coming back.

Just keep plugging away at teh content and assume everyone reads your stuff but can't think of any kind of response, it's what I do.

I buy local produce from the Public Market, the money goes straight into the farmers pocket. I like that. I have been buying local booze now that all these cool distilleries and brewery places have popped up. I get my hair cut from a girl I went to school with, she ownes her own salon. Its certainty not cheap but I wouldn't go snywhere else. There are a couple local food places the I frequent. Is Wegmans considered local even if they have stores in Boston and D.C?
That's about it. Everything thing else is big box store or Amazon

The computer software thing REALLY sucks. It's gone now and maybe it was always going to be gone. Not only are places like your parents' shop gone but the non-Walmart retail places are annoying as hell.

We really have screwed up a lot of things in this country for the worse.

I read a story in school back in the late Seventies that eerily forecasted today's online shopping. Everybody lived in apartments and never ever went out because of the massive overcrowding thry called 'the crush'. They would pick stuff for sale from their television and it would show up via a delivery chute. The boy finally lets his curiosity get the better of him and he escapes the apartment to find stuff out for himself.
Ive lookef for the story and can't find it anywhere, Its more that shopping is evolving now rather than getting worse. Supermarkets and malls hastened the rise of national brand stores and killed off the small local places just like Amazon is killing off the big stores now. It's all eco-Darwinism.

Can post editing be thurrned on?

Sure.

Also when it comes to restaurants, I am like 95 percent a local business guy. Eating at national chains is an "ooooh we are being bad!!" thing.