Skip to main content

Buying into the Evil Empire

wallymart 006I shopped at WalMart today, and I am ashamed.

I can’t help it!!!  Much of what they sell, you can’t even buy elsewhere because other retailers can’t compete.  And okay, sometimes you can buy the stuff somewhere else, for twice or three times the price. 

Naturally, I want to be the one to lead the way, and in theory don’t mind paying what something is worth.  But the truth is, what the other stores carry for two or three times the price is the same Chinese junk (no boat pun intended) that WalMart carries. 

WalMart just gets a bigger, better deal from the junk-makers, so they can  undercut at the retail side as well.

But I am proud that I stuck to the list, which had exactly six items on it:

~ hankies – the main reason for the trip, and WalMart has very decent big white ones, 13 for $9.

~ tights for Naomi Rivka – in the back of my mind since someone mentioned going to WalMart for tights a few weeks ago.  One pair all-cotton, $5, one pair bamboo rayon, $4.

~ indoor watering can - $3 (plants are dying because I can’t find the blue dollarama one)

~ markers, Crayola – I dunno, maybe $4?

~ inkjet cartridge, $40 (eek!!!)  - and, yes, they do probably sell printers, with ink cartridges, for less than $40… what are we supposed to do, buy a new printer when we run out of ink???

~ earrings for me because the top pair is too small and they are slipping into my earring holes…so $10, kind of an impulse because they were only added to the shopping list in the parking lot.  But it still counts as sticking to the list, right?

Does it cancel out the good karma of overwintering plants (instead of buying new ones every spring!), using cloth hankies and choosing renewable fibres if I buy the stuff at WalMart…?

While I am celebrating Tacky White Trash day with my trip to the evil retail giant, I was also struck by the insight that Not Every Supper Must Be Wonderful.  What a revelation!  I couldn’t think of what to make and didn’t want to shlep to the grocery store a day early, so I decided we can darn well eat cheap, easy food lovingly hand-crafted from the contents of the potato room.

Suppers!

Tuesday:

~ Leftover Shabbos chicken soup

~ Superstore Chicken

~ Roast tinned potatoes (no onion soup mix, though… definitely inferior without it!)

~ Creamed corn / leftover Shabbos corn

Wednesday (today) – the supper that doesn’t have to be wonderful!

~ Roasted-garlic potato bread

~ Some kind of soup with broccoli in it

~ Tuna patties (in keeping with the Tacky White Trash theme) w/mushroom sauce

~ Stir-fried multi-coloured Ontario peppers

So yay, me!
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

I love your comments!

Popular posts from this blog

לימודי קודש/Limudei Kodesh Copywork & Activity Printables

Welcome to my Limudei Kodesh / Jewish Studies copywork and activity printables page.  As of June 2013, I am slowly but surely moving all my printables over to 4shared because Google Docs / Drive is just too flaky for me. What you’ll find here: Weekly Parsha Copywork More Parsha Activities More Chumash / Tanach Activities Yom Tov Copywork & Activities Tefillah Copywork Pirkei Avos / Pirkei Avot Jewish Preschool Resources Other printables! For General Studies printables and activities, including Hebrew-English science resources and more, click here . For Miscellaneous homeschool helps and printables, click here . If you use any of my worksheets, activities or printables, please leave a comment or email me at Jay3fer “at” gmail “dot” com, to link to your blog, to tell me what you’re doing with it, or just to say hi!  If you want to use them in a school, camp or co-op setting, please email me (remove the X’s) for rates. If you just want to say Thank You, here’s a
27 comments
Read more

Hebrew/ עברית & English General Studies Printables

For Jewish Studies, including weekly parsha resources and copywork, click here . If you use any of my worksheets, activities or printables, please leave a comment or email me at Jay3fer “at” gmail “dot” com, to link to your blog, to tell me what you’re doing with it, or just to say hi!  If you want to use them in a school, camp or co-op setting, please email me (remove the X’s) for rates. If you enjoy these resources, please consider buying my weekly parsha book, The Family Torah :  the story of the Torah, written to be read aloud – or any of my other wonderful Jewish books for kids and families . English Worksheets & Printables: (For Hebrew, click here ) Science :  Plants, Animals, Human Body Math   Ambleside :  Composers, Artists History Geography Language & Literature     Science General Poems for Elemental Science .  Original Poems written by ME, because the ones that came with Elemental Science were so awful.  Three pages are included:  one page with two po
10 comments
Read more

What do we tell our kids about Chabad and “Yechi”?

If I start by saying I really like Chabad, and adore the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, z"l, well... maybe you already know where I'm headed. Naomi Rivka has been asking lately what I think about Chabad.  She asks, in part, because she already knows how I feel.  She already knows I’m bothered, though to her, it’s mostly about “liking” and “not liking.”  I wish things were that simple. Our little neighbourhood in Israel has a significant Chabad presence, and Chabad conducts fairly significant outreach within the community.  Which sounds nice until you realize that this is a religious neighbourhood, closed on Shabbos, where some huge percentage of people are shomer mitzvos.  Sure, it’s mostly religious Zionist, and there are a range of observances, for sure, but we’re pretty much all religious here in some way or another. So at that point, this isn’t outreach but inreach .  Convincing people who are religious to be… what? A lot of Chabad’s efforts here are focused on kids, including a
Post a Comment
Read more