Triple washed vegetables.

Cindy went to Superstore the other day and bought a bag of green beans. I read the bag and it said "triple washed!"

Triple! The beans weren't washed once. That wasn't good enough. Twice - nope not good enough. Three times!

But the funny thing is when I opened the bag, the beans seemed a little slimy. So I had to end up washing the slime off.

That defeats the whole purpose of buying washed veggies.

On the plus side, I guess that means these beans were quadrupled washed.

Double strollers are beasts.

We went looking for double strollers last weekend. We're definitely going to need one. Jake can walk pretty well now, but he often asks "up" every 5 minutes or so because he gets tired out.

Double strollers are huge and heavy. They won't fit in our regular car. They barely fit in the minivan. Pushing the thing around is like driving a truck.

When you buy one, you need to take into account your baby car seat. Does it fit in the stroller? You should hope so or you have to buy another baby car seat.

***

Other boring stuff about strollers:

We went to three stores. Walmart, The Bay and Sears. Walmart only had one stroller, chained up to you couldn't even roll it. Plus it seemed crappy.

The Bay had a good stroller that we wanted, but it was cheaper at Sears.

So now we'll just wait for a sale.

I'm not renewing membership at Costco because I don't like shopping there.

It's such a pain shopping at Costco. Here's why:

- The parking lot is a zoo. I don't like busy parking lots.

- You have to pay to shop there. I hate paying a yearly membership fee to have the pleasure of spending my money there. I don't think I save enough to recoup the membership fee.

- I'm skeptical on whether it's really cheaper. I don't think it is when you take into account time, hassle and storage. I hate storing gigantic crates of food in my basement.

- I don't like all the rich people in Costco scrounging around like they're poor. Have some pride.

- Lineups. They're aways huge.

- They don't take Visa or Mastercard! Huh? Get with the 1980s.

- It's hard to find things because the store is so gigantic. If you want paper towels or toilet paper, you have to walk to the back corner of the store and it takes about a half an hour.

Buying cheap stuff makes life worse.

When I was younger I used to buy the cheapest possible stuff.

Now that I'm older, I like to think I'm immune from cheapness, but really I'm not. I'll often buy cheap crap and that's a problem according to Ellen Ruppel Shell in her book Cheap: the high cost of discount culture.

She says that when stores sell cheaper stuff with lower prices, it means other stores have to lower their prices to compete. This means they make less profit (because margins are smaller) and to counteract the losses they cut salaries.

So when everyone starts buying cheap stuff, salaries go down. It becomes a cycle because now people have lower salaries and they can only AFFORD cheap stuff.

In a better world everyone would buy the most expensive stuff. Salaries would start to go up.

High prices and high salaries would mean we'd probably be able to afford approximately the same amount of stuff. It's just that now all our stuff would be excellent, high quality stuff instead of crappy cheap shit made by child slaves in China.

Are extended warranties good or bad?

Cindy bought me an expensive cell phone for Christmas. It lasted 10 days before it stopped working. She returned it to the store and they're mailing it to the repair centre in Toronto.

Nowadays when you buy electronics, the salesman pushes an extended warranty on you. Why? Because they make a huge commission off of it (I know this from a friend who works in retail), and because electronics are made shitty.

I don't know if the extended warranty trend is good or bad. On the plus side, an extended warranty means insurance on an electronic item. On the other hand, it's a cash-grab for electronics manufacturers who no longer have any motivation to build high quality items that last.

Since when did we have to start paying a premium on top of the original price, just to ensure that the object lasts longer than a year? Overall, I'm thinking this is a bad trend for consumers.

It's related to my October 15th post in which I wrote:

Another gripe I have with the post office is insurance on lost items. You can pay more to "cover" the cost of a lost item, in case the post office screws up. Here's what the post office is essentially saying:

"Here's the cost for mailing a letter. Now, if you pay more, and we screw up, you'll get your money back." Umm, shouldn't you get your money back, regardless? They didn't do their job.

I remember when boxing day used to be a big deal.

I think Boxing Day was a big deal when I was a kid. I vaguely remember that it was illegal for stores to open on boxing day, but many did anyway and faced government fines for breaking the law.

How silly.

I also remember huge crowds and line ups - similar to "Black Friday" in the States where Walmart shoppers trample each other trying to buy stereos.

Except this was Canada so it was much more polite. No trampling. Even in high school I remember walking around the malls on boxing day, shoulder to shoulder with all the people trying to save 30% on a $20 compact disc.

First, are the prices that good on Boxing Day? I don't know. I imagine they're pretty good, but not spectacular. Stores still need to make money. They don't give stuff away. So my guess is that in most cases you would be paying more than wholesale.

Second, is it worth the hassle? Think of the crowds and lineups and general inconvenience. Is it worth it to put up with this to save a few dollars? Maybe. Not for me though. Not for a lot of people. In fact, I'd pay 30% more if I could guaranteed that the malls would be empty, I'd have great service and the parking lot would be wide open.

Third, I bet half the stuff they advertise is gone. You'd show up the store and they'd do a classic bait and switch. Unless you were one of the idiots who lined up outside at 3am - then you may have been lucky enough to buy that object that will change your life forever and make you happy.

Nowadays boxing day isn't a big deal anymore. Places like Costco have low, warehouse prices all the time. Regular stores have boxing week sales. No rush. You can buy most things online for pretty cheap, and if you really want to cheap out you can go to Craigslist.

Isn't a boxing day blow out sale such a strange thing? I mean, here we are, complaining for the last month about the commercialization of Christmas and how poor we are and how it's such a hassle to buy gifts, then THE DAY AFTER Christmas we rush out to the malls to trample on people so we can buy more shit.

Now I'm angry.

I want to steal from stores as revenge for poor customer service.

Sometimes I think a little theifing is in order. Especially when I get bad customer service.

It's easy to put something on your cart or your tray and then just don't take it out at the cashier. It's the obvious stealing technique. If anyone calls you on it, you simply "forgot" and you act embarrassed.

A few times, I've given Jake toys to hold and then pushed him through the line without bothering to pay for the item. So he's stolen some things for me. Once it was a bag of licorice.

Another time at Canadian Tire I was waiting around for someone for 10 minutes. The sales guy left and never came back. I wanted to borrow a measuring tape to see if an item fit in my trunk.

I got fed up and took one from the shelf and walked out the store to my car and measured. I can't remember if I returned it. I may have put it down on the ground in the parking lot.

We should steal from stores who give us bad customer service! Why not? It will teach them a lesson. They obviously don't care...