Natural Selection

If you catch a cold these days and decide its time to medicate, be prepared to sit down in the pharmacy isle for some reading and researching. Longs even has a bench of seats available. I thought that those seats were for folks waiting for prescriptions, but now I get it. There is a double rainbow of medicine packages available with infinite combinations of symptoms listed as well as infinite combinations of results. Trying to choose something in such a milieu while in the fog of a head cold is rather difficult. I would even consider buying ahead, except that how will I know my exact symptoms?
Before the wall came down, I visited the bad side of Berlin and saw what the opposite of such abundance looks like. Hole in the wall corner groceries housed empty wooden produce bins, with a few potatoes or onions left in one bin somewhere near the counter. Luxury items such as TVs were sold in the hotel gift shops. No one locally would be buying them anyway.
Having an infinite variety of products available is delightful. Even better is having an infinite supply of money to buy them. But, barring that, I enjoy the hunt. Our thrift shops carry luxurious treasures waiting to be adopted, and shopping is a common form of entertainment.
For the most part, we do a good job of avoiding waste, especially when you consider that the greater percentage of us never have experienced scarcity. Sometimes waste happens. My French toast this morning was served with an ice cream scoop of butter. Much as I like butter, I had to waste most of that one. When we start throwing away individual packets of unused foods, then I feel my hackles rise.
We stayed in a nice place in Africa renowned for its guest buffet. Upon approaching the ample line of food tables, it became apparent that most of the flourish was potted plants, and not at all food. In fact, only the third table in the lineup held the edible items, and that included three soups. The fame of that buffet shocked me into realizing how wildly fantastic we have it in America. Back at our table, the four of us asked our waiter if we could have some bread. “Some bread?” he asked, stalling with wide frightened eyes. “Uh, sure, of course.” He was gone for a while, and came back with a bread plate with one roll on it. We thanked him profusely and cut it into four large pieces.
My parents grew up during the depression. They taught me a few things about making do, doing over, or doing without. Even though I can sometimes afford newer things, I actually like shopping second-hand. Maybe it’s the treasure hunt aspect. Definitely the uniqueness appeals. But I also had to unlearn some things. When I was cutting the elastic off of worn out underwear to save for sewing projects, it took a true friend to point out that I don’t have a sewing machine, nor any intended projects. I had to let the BVD elastic go. Out of the things I throw away reluctantly because “I could use this for something,” only one in ten do I eventually regret tossing. That’s a good enough percentage to help me let go of the stuff. I just hope that I don’t regret it when it all crashes. Even if our economy does collapse, I don’t suppose I’m going to be hunting for that elastic before it has lost its stretch. More so, I don’t want to hang on to things so much that I lose mine.
I never did find the cold medicine I was looking for, by the way. I wanted the one that had a bright bold NEW on the front with fine print underneath which reads, “makes it go away.”