What's Wrong With The Dollar Store? Or Irish Spring Soap? (Leftist Elitism)

Irish spring soap is three-for-a-dollar-and-a-quarter.  We call it "soap" not "product."  But no, it doesn't repel spiders!

I recently saw a thing online where workers at a Dollar General store all quit at once. They were upset about pay and working conditions, but the straw that broke the camel's back was that the company would not let them donate foods that were near their expiry, or products no longer carried, to local charities.  The company insisted these items be put in the dumpster.

Here's a hint:  If you are the general manager of a Dollar General and are about to throw away bags of food and items that are "still good" - then call the local charity and hint that some stuff is about to be left outside and - wink-wink - it is going to be "thrown away." But I bet they have cameras to discourage this sort of thing.

There are liability issues with expired foods and when you throw away "perfectly good" merchandise, people take it back and "return" it for cash or store credit.  So often, "corporate" insists that these items be smashed or otherwise destroyed.

The evil side of me suggests that maybe if these food items are donated to the local food bank then customers would no longer have to buy them, which would crimp sales at Dollar General and thus keep more items on the shelf longer, which means more stuff given to charity.  The same people getting free food at the food bank are the same people shopping at Dollar General.  They would figure out pretty quickly that free is better than paying.  Poor people aren't as dumb as they look!

But kudos to the workers - and manager - of that store for not just quitting over their own self-interest, but because they also wanted to help those less fortunate than themselves. 

And that's pretty unfortunate, to be less fortunate than someone working at Dollar General.

There has been a lot of negative press about "Dollar Stores" which in many rural areas are the only stores around.  Some items are no real bargains there, although the Dollar Tree has some good bargains, but like anything else, you have to be astute.  Dollar General is something I have less experience with - maybe a few visits in my lifetime.  But I did find some bargains there, of course.

Note:  Dollar Tree famously bought out Family Dollar, which is a shitty version of Dollar General.  It turned out to be a huge mistake, as Family Dollar is hemorrhaging cash and bringing down Dollar Tree in the process.  They are slated to close 1,000 stores, mostly Family Dollar stores (and 30 Trees).  As "The Tree" moves to multiple pricing strategies, it makes less sense to have both brands, particularly as they are often in the same shopping plaza or even the same building.

With all the stuff cheaply made in China, it is possible to do fairly well in this country if you are "poor."  In fact, that is a problem with the "made in America" crowd.  Stuff "made in America" by union workers is staggeringly expensive.  I wrote before about how my Dad - a fairly well-off executive, could not "afford" a Coleman steel-belted cooler ($99) or a Weber kettle ($99) or a color TV ($500) in 1970.  Those prices are about the same today, but factoring in inflation since 1970, the first two would be worth $786 today (!!) and the latter $3400.  Bear in mind you can get a television far better than the 25" tube TV my Dad eventually bought, for about $200 or less, at Walmart.

So cheap shit from China makes living in America easier.  Throw in food stamps, Obamaphone,  Section-8 housing, Obamacare, and so forth, and well, a "poor" person in America is doing pretty well by world standards.  Or even American standards.  Increasing wages or enacting tariffs sound like a great ideas, until you realize it means everything gets a lot more expensive, and you end up running in place, if not falling behind.  Look at a photo of a house in the 1950's and see how stark and minimalist it is - it was not just a design theme, but a necessity.  Hoarders didn't exist back then as no one could afford to hoard.

But I get it.  Working at these places sucks.  I try to be super-nice to the poor folks on their feet all day, ringing up people's crap.  Just doing the job is bad enough, but you see some customers treating the staff like they are slaves.  No, Karen, the customer is not always right!

But in the absence of any other retail store, these kind of stores serve a need.  I shop at "The Tree" at least a few times a month to get some basic cleaning supplies and other things. I am not too proud to save money!

Others, well, they are elitist.  And it should come as no surprise that a British guy living in a big city, can afford to look down on us plebes for shopping at Dollar General instead of Whole Foods.  By the way, what is it with political comedians from Britain coming over here and telling us what for? I mean, shouldn't they be back home saving their country from Brexit?  Or maybe Brexit was why they left.  Out of the frying pan and into the fire!  Welcome to the United States of Trump, dictator for life.  Yes, he promised to do this.  Good thing he's old!  I wonder who would succeed him?  Kim Jong Trump?

Of course, Mr. Oliver confuses Dollar General with The Dollar Store - and they are two entirely different things - or at least were.  Dollar General is a mini-market basically, with various price points.  Dollar Tree was a store where everything was a dollar.  You never heard the words "Price Check!" at Dollar Tree!  But now, due to inflation, it is dollar-and-a-quarter tree, and they now sell select items for $5 as well.  But there is a difference, and of course, John Oliver would never set foot in either place - but an intern probably did, on his behalf.

One of the things Mr. Oliver ragged on was "Irish Spring" soap. When I was a kid, this was the bomb. 🎶 "With a bar of Irish Spring in your hand, it's like taking a shower in Ireland!" 🎶 And "Manly, yes! But I like it toooo!"  It was the go-to soap back in the 1970s, or should I say, "personal body bar."  But as an obsolete brand, it is sold cheaply, three-for-a-buck (and a quarter) along with other soaps as well.  In his "parody" video, Oliver suggests that they sell a tiny, tiny bar of soap for a dollar, instead of three for $1.25.  Talk about out-of-touch!

Then he went on a rant on how much he hates that soap.  Well, I am sure he never use soap but instead, product, on his skin - bottles of lotions and ointments and cleaning agents, each costing $29.99 or more, probably far more.  He lives in a different world that the rest of us, and talks down to us peasants as to how ignorant we are not to buy designer soaps.

Some of us don't have a choice.  Some of us choose not to consume for the sake of consumption.  I've been down that road before.  My husband ran a gourmet food store and spent his entire paycheck - and them some - on items they sold.  That was with a 40% employee discount.  $5 roll of paper towels, anyone?  We were "whole paycheck" long before "whole foods" existed.  It was stupid and we stopped - because we don't make tens of thousands of dollars (hundreds?) for doing one episode of lame comedy.

The Little Old Ladies (LoL's) here on the island swear by Irish Spring soap as keeping away spiders.  Buy some bars for cheap and throw them around the house and it will smell like spring in Ireland and - no spiders!  Well, as the photo above, taken yesterday at the "shed" where we store the trailer clearly shows, the spiders are not deterred, and in fact, built a web from the bar we left there.

I take these old bars with me when camping and use them in the communal shower, leaving them behind.  It is not a bad soap and I am not too proud to use it, even if it was previously used as spider deterrent.

Could I "afford" to spend thousands a year on "product"?  Well, we do spend some on some skin cleansers and moisturizers that our dermatologist recommended.  CeraVe, for example, and AmLactin, for example, the latter of which seems not to moisturize so much as to burn off the outer layer of dermis.  Mark still uses Trader Joe's teatree shampoo, convincing himself that he still has hair on his head.  It is a mild delusion that I let him indulge in. No gain in pointing out the obvious.

But getting back to the point, rants against discount stores and cheap soaps come across as elitist and out-of-touch, which is easy to do when you are a highly-paid comedian who never lived in rural America or worked a minimum-wage job.  You are making fun of the poor, Mr. Oliver.  How is that going to make them align with your political views?

Or is this the sort of trash-talk that makes the poor vote for Trump?   I mean, Trump is out of touch, too, but he doesn't poke fun at poor people, he merely rips them off.