(We are SO surprised by this -- --)
Well. . .
There are six different products to do laundry with. (Not counting the washer and dryer.) There is a Dryell kit to do dry cleaning in the dryer, (works pretty good too.) I also have supplies in there. Waxed paper, plastic wrap, garbage bags, light bulbs, dog food, juice, paper plates and cups, garden seeds, cornflakes, a food dehydrator and a crock pot. Mousetraps, D-con . . .the mouse poison, (this is before we knew what a good mouser Bob was). My iron, and get this, 18 containers with household cleaners to clean everything from windows to toilet bowls. (This does not however guarantee that my toilet bowl is clean, there is a perennial line just at the waterline that I cannot seem to get rid of.) There are paper bags from shopping at the grocery store and a good old-fashioned broom and dust pan. Oh yeah, there's also a box with a device that makes instant hot water that you install under your sink. My parents had an extra one, so they gave it to us.
Now this is just the stuff in my utility room. Just think of all the stuff that is hiding all over the rest of the house! I can't figure out how we got all this stuff, or if we need all this stuff. Or if I want all this stuff.
But what can I do? I'm told that to be a good homemaker I need all these things right? . . . Right?
I keep reading articles about making household cleaners out of four things: Ammonia, baking soda, vinegar, and borax powder. I'm thinking about trying them, it sure would be cheaper even if my toilet bowl still ends up having the stain around the waterline.
Sigh.
I feel kind of caught up into this consumer merry-go-round. Buy this, buy that, you need more, better, faster, easier. . . . everything. Oh I fall for it too. Make no mistake. But I wonder about it too. A Lot.
Have you ever read Brave New World?
I just got the book out and leafed through some of the chapters and found some interesting quotes in there. Here they are:
"Every man woman and child compelled to consume so much a year. In the interests of industry."
“. . .even in Our Ford’s day, most games were played without more apparatus than a ball or two and a few sticks and perhaps a bit of netting. Imagine the folly of allowing people to play elaborate games which do nothing whatever to increase consumption. It’s madness. Nowadays the Controllers won’t approve of any new game unless it can be shown that it requires at least as much apparatus as the most complicated of existing games.”
"You can't consume much if you sit still and read books."
"Now -- such is progress -- the old men have no time, no leisure from pleasure, not a moment to sit down and think -- or if ever by some unlucky chance such a crevice of time should yawn in the solid substance of their distractions, there is always soma, delicious soma..."
You may not believe me, I could hardly believe it myself,it just seems too bizarre, but I promise you I'm telling the truth. When I came in to my computer to dictate this entry using Dragon NaturallySpeaking, I noticed that I had e-mail. Oh no, more spam. And what did it say on the heading of the e-mail?
“ Get prescription drugs without going to the doctor.. .
Fiorcet, Somaa, Prozac “
I don't know if it's like this and other countries, but here in America there are commercials for several Prozac like drugs all the time. Now don't get me wrong, if one is clinically depressed one should take medication. However in the commercials the questions are so overly simplistic. Are you sad? Here take this pill. Not, Are you sad? Go deep inside, find out why, talk to a friend, see a therapist, to your inner work. Change your life.
No, it's: Take this pill.
So my question is this: Am I being antisocial and subversive if I stay home, sit still and read books and think? After all, I'm not out there consuming.
Anyway, I thought the parallels between modern life in western civilization, and the ideas in Brave New World were more than just coincidental. Only thing is in the book, these ideas were forced on the population, a totalitarian vision of the future. But it seems to me that we are going this direction much more quietly and of our own free will.
(Maybe you should re-think that ad for Somaa.
Just a thought. . .)