Inflation

Yesterday I paid $15 for a quart of ice cream and a small container of heavy cream.

Now, granted: I buy top-of-the-line stuff. But still…what is it? Milk, egg, and sugar with some flavoring thrown in. The leftovers from making skim milk. A plastic container with a screw-on lid (value: about 20 cents). A small glass bottle suitable for use as a cute bud vase or redeemable for two dollah. Nothin’ in there is worth 15 bucks.

We’re told that inflation is not only NOT rising, it may even be dropping. And  yeah, we’re all mighty happy to see gas prices under $2 a gallon, thanks to somebody somewhere finally having the sense to see the U.S. should be mining its own petroleum products instead of depending on our enemies to supply our energy needs.

But still…hmmm…

Jestjack, a favorite reader and commenter in these parts, sends this report from his part of the country:

I don’t care what the folks at the Fed say. Prices are rising and just getting crazy.

I’m working on one of my rentals on a “#@+&#!” of a job. This is the plumbing coming into the house in the lower unit’s bath….tight quarters..in a wall…behind tile AND sheet rock…. Good times!

Anyway, I go to pick up the parts to do the job at my favorite store that has “toys for big boys” (Home Depot) and, I swear, a lunch bag full of parts: $50.

Had to return today to get a part to finish the job. Standing in line, I speak to a guy who has carriage bolts in his hand….the same kind I had bought at a yard sale last fall. I bought a #10 can full of carriage bolts for 50 cents and promptly used about 10 to build a set of racks for my truck with some free recycled lumber.

So as the guy is getting rung up I notice ONE of the carriage bolts is $1.19 plus tax, or $1.26. I felt faint for the guy.

Has anyone else noticed such crazy prices? The bright side is this plumbing job would have easily been $500 to $600. Just seems to me like folks are getting squeezed…

Your thoughts?

Then we have this from SDXB, who, as a professional tightwad, is exquisitely sensitive to pricing:

I busied myself today charging up the big numbers.

Well, not that big, but big enough to cause a rush of momentary anxiety.

Today I went furniture buying—not a job at which I consider myself competent. Pat provided guardian angel service as I wandered aimlessly through a cavernous American Furniture warehouse store. And then I spotted the two stuffed chairs that will soon replace the yard-sale bargains in my living room. Ding, zap: $700.

I needed a glass of ice water after that. Sipped collegially with one of my shooting pals, who commiserated about the horrors of furniture buying. Better left to women, as he shook my hand and wished me good luck at Lazy Boy.

Pat guided me through the place yesterday. I was hungry then, surly and cantankerous (as opposed to Hungry Bitch Syndrom [HBS]). I was cranky (as opposed to bitchy). And I was unreceptive (as opposed to open-minded). But we did find love seats with supportive backs and not pillows, and they were well-made by American workmen.

Do you get what you pay for, always? Only $2,200, delivered, and I think they’ll look great in the TV-kitchen entertainment area. I slid the plastic joyfully—ding, zap. I was touched deeply in my cheapest place.

What’s going on? Me, spending money?

I looked around and realized my place was looking  shabby. You can’t make a silk purse out of pig’s ear, but you can try.

You’ll like this one: for 13 years I’ve put up with a toilet seat that would slam down like a deadfall when least expected, like when I was taking a whiz. I feared for my life, where my brains dwell. Decapitation was always a centimeter away.

Ah, but now…a slow-close toilet seat proved the fix. Thirty bucks, ding, zap.

Somewhere in the past a voice said, “You deserve better furniture.” How was I to know what “better furniture” was?

“Look for bigger numbers,” an angelic voice suggested. And so I did.

Once I recovered from the strangeness of the concept of SDXB buying furniture anywhere other than a yard sale or a thrift store (or making it himself), I cruised over to the Ashley site. Ashley sells middle-of-the-road furniture, not great but not outright junk.

A typical kinda ugly beige fabric chair (little or no choice in fabrics, apparently) is $383, allegedly “marked down” from $450. A leather chair comparable in appearance to the one in my living room is $975, marked down from $1300!

Over to Pottery Barn, where I bought the leather chair in the family room lo! these many years past, when I had a job. One that’s roughly the same style? Sixteen hundred and ninety-nine dollah!

Holy sh!t.

I sure couldn’t afford that today. Nor would I have felt I could afford it when I was employed and earning 60 grand a year.

Yesterday my son remarked, in a tone of resignation, “I’m poor. And I have to deal with the fact that I’m poor.” In fact, he earns a little more the median household income in Phoenix. That’s not saying much: this is a right-to-work state with vast swaths of true slums and large working-poor tracts that are on their way to slumhood. If two typical salaries add up to what he earns, a typical salary here is a handful of peanuts.

Still… What say you, dear reader? Do you see something that looks like inflation in your parts? Or are we crazy?