Shock At The Supermarket
(Edit: In My Haste to Write I Forget to Click My Order)*
My Numbers and Their Numbers Don’t Jibe
*So it’s canned soup for dinner. 7:00 PM, MDT. Double feature Friday night still in effect.
The other day when I was glancing at one of Disneyland’s biggest newspapers, the Washington Post, they were saying that inflation was over 8%, they just didn’t say how much over it actually was. So today when I was doing a grocery order for the first of the month I was shocked at how bad inflation actually was. I usually get two orders a month delivered by Instacart. Today was ridiculous. At the first of the year Diet Coke was $5.99 an 12 pk. Then a few months later it was $6.79. Today it was whopping $8.39! I usually have a Coke at night when watching TV. I drink lots of coffee in the daytime. Cokes are a lot lower in caffeine. Even I need some sleep. so Cokes in the evening makes sense to me.
So let’s see, that’s about a 40% increase. My math skills aren’t up to snuff any longer. How about my coffee costs? A can of Colombian, the Kroeger store brand, was $5.99 and has been for several years. Today it was $8.99. Maxwell House standard was over $10.00 when a few months ago it was $6.49. Those are almost 50%. This is killing poor people everywhere. Food should be affordable for all, not just the bourgeoisie. Other food items which I consistently purchase had similar increases.
Many items are hard to get. Like 8oz foam cups that I use for my expensive coffee.(They don’t break and stay hot longer than mugs. A small, guilty pleasure.) Last month it was toilet paper and paper towels. A few months earlier we must of had a potato famine as potato chips were non-existent. And if someone wants to blame Russia I’ll hobble down the street with my cane screaming bloody murder like a madman. Yet Congress didn’t have any trouble giving $40B to Ukraine in a losing effort. Go figure.
I hear that gasoline has increased about 80%. Am I to believe that figure? I don’t own a car, BTW. 8.2% my ass!! Where do they get these ridiculous numbers? Yep, the happiest place in the world; Disneyland. Mickey and his friends must be eating caviar these days. Instead I eat canned ravioli that has gone from $0.99 to $1.79, or 79%; that math I can do. F**k You, Mickey, and your annoying sidekicks too. You, dear reader, may substitute any name you choose in place of Mickey. There was a guy named Mickey that tormented me throughout most of my school days until I got big enough to throw him down the bleachers, at about the 11th grade; hence my animosity to the name Mickey.
Then when I was checking out there was a new 0.3% surcharge for the gasoline used by the drivers. My $20.00 discount coupon was swallowed up by inflation. This order was about $145.00 total, including tip and surcharge. At the first of this year it would have been about $105.00 total. My 6+% increase on my Social Security income was swallowed up by Medicare increases. Net raise, $10.00, instead of about $79.00 it would have been if Medicare didn’t go up.
One final item of personal doom today. My apartment complex has been sold again. I have no idea how much the rent will increase in August when my lease is up. Last year it increased almost 6%. Or, worse yet, is that they may just sell it off to a developer in which case I’ll be forced to move when they raze the building and put up luxury condos. Gentrification is always in the back of my mind every time this place gets sold. It sits in a centralized, prime location, close to two big malls and easy access to Interstate 40. No wonder folks explode in a rage and the only option they have is to annihilate easy targets. Things in Disneyland really do suck these days.
I used to believe that inflation would never be as bad as it was back in the early 1980’s when neo-liberal economics became the norm. My rent almost doubled. Tax breaks for the wealthy and inflation for we lowly citizens. I was wrong. The 2020’s are promising to be even more tumultuous than back then. And, yes, there’s been several more substantial tax breaks on top—for the top tier, the 0.1%—of the original ones back in the Reagan heydays of the ‘80’s.
Finis
So there it is, a short snapshot of inflation and how it affects a person such as an ol’ hippy with meager means on a fixed income. I hope I’ve shown the absurdity of the “official” numbers in the corporate(MSM) media. They aren’t even in the same county, so to speak.
My food delivery will be here shortly. At least I can still get snacks to go with my TV viewing in the evenings. Others aren’t near as fortunate as myself. Also, be kind and stay safe.
Peace, The Ol’ Hippy—3rd June, 2022
Images: Gas station—Jacob Rosen~~Unsplash
Store shelves—Charles Gao~~Unsplash
Inflation arrow~~Pixabay
They screw around with the numbers, but food inflation alone was 9.1% in April. May will be higher, number comes out on June 10th. Biden mumbled that prices will remain high, not much he can do. Really bad answer, no empathy for working people.