Stating the Obvious

Cassandra enjoys reading other blogs.  She doesn't feel possessive, proprietary, or hyper-critical about them, since blogging is not her crime of choice.  Reading others' thoughts, besides, give her things to think more broadly about.  And - okay, she confesses - sometimes criticize.

Here is an example.

A certain gentleman wrote a small piece in which he mused about grocery shopping with his wife.  Following her tamely through the store, as a good husband should, he happened to pick up a bag of six bell peppers.  He looked at the price.  The bag of peppers was $6.98.

And here is where he wanders into dangerous although interesting territory.  He writes, "That’s over a dollar a pepper.  That’s just too much.

"The produce guy was re-stocking that particular display when I was pointing out the cost and I was informed [by his wife] I was talking too loud about the exorbitant price of the peppers.  I just replied to her that I WANTED the guy to know his peppers cost too much.  She replied that they were not HIS peppers and that he only worked there and had no control over Sam’s pricing policies."

Telling a clerk that a product costs too much has a couple of things wrong with it.

First, of course, and most obviously, the wife is right:  they aren't the clerk's prices and he has no power to change them, so what is the purpose of the conversation, besides to hassle an innocent worker?

Second, what does 'cost too much' really mean?  To whom?  Compared to what?

Third, even if some nefarious accountant in some dark back room chose that price  solely for the purpose of irritating the customers - which he probably did not, but instead based it on the gross cost of getting them out into the produce department - if you don't want to pay the stated price for something, don't buy it.  And don't pester people about your outrage and your refusal to pay that particular price.  Trust me, they don't care.  No one cares.  You just look - well - pointlessly irritable.

Fourth and finally, the clerk might actually have enough information to know that it is a fair price.  So the complainer only makes himself look and sound stupid as well as irritating.

Oh, wait.  Fifth.  Cassandra is libertarian enough to believe that everyone makes his or her own choices based on available information, understanding, and personal preferences.  So complaining about a price as if you are somehow privy to information and intelligence that is unavailable to the clerk and to the accountant is frankly insulting.  It's right up there with - although not as personal as -  telling a fat person that she is fat, as if she had never noticed (You have such a nice face; you would be so pretty if only...).  The fat person, and the produce clerk, would be fully within their rights to brain the complainer with the nearest available piece of furniture.

Conclusion?  Put the peppers in the basket.  Or don't.  But either way, please shut up about them.