Nita Lay-Knightly

[footnotefetish]

Last night, shortly before going to bed, I listened to the Blue Scholars song "Proletariat Blues." As a consequence, I had a nightmare about a horrible retail job. I worked in some sort of big retail store--I don't remember what kind. At the end of the nightmare, I was running through the parking lot, wearing socks but no shoes. I'm not sure

Comments

[flw]

We almost whittled Wild Oats out of our lives completely, and then Sunflower changed their Bulk section, eliminating almost every single thing we get their regularly. And they just announced they were getting rid of their soy protein powder! Agh! So I am forced to go to Whole Foods for a few key items now.

I actually, literally, recite in my head before going in that people (the other customers) are going to be assholes, and I should be ready for it. Somehow expecting it makes it okay. It is good to see how rich people act. What weirds me out is that they don't step on each other's toes. They have some sort of rich bitch detection system that allows them to avoid one another while heaping inconvenience on the "little people." I guess that's part of being a rich asshole.

[footnotefetish]

I've always had a hard time shopping at Sunflower because of their somewhat inconsistent inventory. One day they might get a pallet full of marinated eggplant from Spain...but then they'll sell through it and not order it again.

It will be interesting to see how Whole Foods does in Tucson, now that it's taken over Wild Oats. When I worked at Wild Oats, I would encounter people who--years later--still complained that Wild Oats bought out Reay's Ranch Market. They were Reay's loyalists.

Isn't that weird about rich ass-holes? It's like they can smell your socioeconomic status. They know which people to step on. And is it just me, or do the people with the most money also complain the most about how much they're spending?

[flw]

It's not just you. You can really sense wealth if you have a nose for it. It's not so much "bitchiness" as it is... it's not even necessarily a sense of entitlement. I just get a sense of "You scratch my back and I'll... leave." Just this attitude that they can take up space. The sense of... I'll let my fucking brat kid run around TJ's with a kid-cart banging into your shins because when my kid does it, it's "cute". But imagine the fucking stink they'd make if your kid shoved a cart into their shins. Give me a break! It's the taking up of space (all kinds of space, not just physical... emotional, intentional, etc... For example, when someone is standing in an aisle, they are taking up space, it can't be avoided, but a rich person will convey in their rich way, the intention of taking up more space, somehow. You know? Like, if you're walking down an aisle behind them, and they have a cart [or two] as you approach them, you have to give them slightly more room, because you get the impression that they might strike out in any direction

[footnotefetish]

I guess I've noticed that sort of absolute arrogance and complete lack of etiquette--as well as that sense of entitlement (which is funny and ironic, since it's supposedly poor folks who think they're entitled to things--just as only poor folks receive welfare, if you believe the hypocritical media of the rich). But I never really made the connection to class. I guess the reason I never made that connection is that you can go to Wal-Mart and encounter the same kind of people--people who don't give the slightest care about what you're experiencing. They're never in your way--you're always in theirs.

But I suppose the poor often imitate the rich. Immediately the stereotypical obsession with "bling" comes to mind. The poor will imitate the rich if it gives them some sort of sense of superiority in their world of second-class citizenship.

Behavior

[flw]

Yeah, you are right about this. Behavior is behavior, I suppose I only notice and make attributions about customs and foibles when I want to draw some kind of conclusion about the person behaving that way.

There are some differences. Take for instance, the "woman letting her children run wild" scenario. If it's a rich woman, she will let her children run wild as part of an overall effort to train her children to behave on their own. The poor woman with wild children is letting her children run wild because she is too exhausted to initiate the antidote: direct physical control. Eventually she will haul off and hit the kids... then she will be poor woman with crying children. The difference is in what the kids learn. The poor kids learn, "run wild and free while you can, because eventually someone is going to come and beat you for no reason that you can discern." Whereas the rich kid learns the rules of "polite" society.

I d'know... but yeah... yes! Everyone's an asshole. I agree.

[flw]

Dewd? What the Hell are YOU doing at Wal-Mart (and thanks for the link, I never would've known what Wal-Mart was had you not provided it!).

How about a user namechange to a_href_fetish?

[footnotefetish]

Dewd? What the Hell are YOU doing at Wal-Mart (and thanks for the link, I never would've known what Wal-Mart was had you not provided it!).

Believe it or not, I often have to go there for work. I'm typically the one stuck with the responsibility of buying gift cards, which we use as compensation for participating in research. I've tried to switch to gift cards from Target--the lesser of two evils--but my efforts were fruitless (it's a long story).

How about a user namechange to a_href_fetish?

I guess I consider hyperlinks to be kind of like the Internet's version of footnotes, so HTML and MLA are almost synonymous to me.

[flw]

You must feel like you are in the belly of the beast when you are in Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart gift cards are like cash now? Wow!

[footnotefetish]

Oh, we just have to use them because they can actually be tracked and logged and whatnot. We can "prove" in an audit that we were actually giving them to participants. I don't think we have any way of cutting people checks, and even if we did, a lot of our participants are adolescents who probably don't have checking accounts. So that's why I'm often in the belly of the beast, much to my dismay.