Affordabilty

Felon47 wants us all to think there's no such thing as "affordability," and increasingly he's right. Not in the way that he wants us to think, of course; his schtick is to claim that talk of things being unaffordable is another "hoax." Given how real all of his other alleged hoaxes are, it's pretty easy to tell he's full of shit (again), but the way he goes about delivering his schtick is kind of funny. He says, “The word ‘affordability’ is a con job by the Democrats,” as if his opponents made up a word to denigrate him with. "The word affordability is a Democrat scam." (Yet  in the same breath he'll tell you you can get by without buying pencils. This man is the president, for fuck's sake.)

You'd think if there was one guy in the world who knew what a scam was, it'd be him, since he's lived his whole life scamming one group after another. But in addition to being a scammer and a fraud, Felon47 is also an idiot who maintains that the word is the scam. Turns out, of course, that the word is just a word. It applies to things in context and not to other things in other contexts. I guess Felon47 just doesn't like that word, it's not one of "the best words."

One context the word does apply to is the Christmas budgets of countless Americans, including me. Thanks in large part to Felon47’s policies and general fuck-you-ness, money is tight. I paid my January health insurance premium yesterday and it's twice what the December premium was. I went grocery shopping last night and spent $100 on what I'd have expected not that long ago to cost $70-$75. I also went Christmas shopping.

Christmas shopping is rarely an efficient way to spend my time, as usually I have no idea what I'm looking for and wait for something to grab me off the shelves or the racks. I did get a couple of things, but after this little mini-spree it's become clear that it's going to be a minimalist Christmas for those on the StarshipTim gift list. Sorry, gang. Better luck next year.

The one bit of sticker shock that for whatever reason sticks with me—even though it's not really "shock," it's less a surprise issue than a scale issue—is that a new paperback book, what used to be classified as a "mass-market" paperback, costs $20+ now. Seems like not that long ago it hit $10 and that seemed steep. But it's not just books, it's everything, and even though I'm a lot more comfortable now than I was in the many years I was straddling the poverty line I am still conditioned in my mind as someone straddling the poverty line. So a paperback with a cover price of $20 hits more than the $45 tag on a pair of jeans.

Anyway, Christmas is a drag for me regardless of the health of my bank account, so whatever. Just a matter of  getting through the month.