This is hardly a fresh observation, but let me join the legions who have said it is WEIRD when you run into someone you went to high school with. And it gets weirder with every year.

Yesterday Paul and I were out on a date, and a woman came up to me and said we’d gone to school together, and I didn’t recognize her AT ALL which was as awk as I’d feared in my many times imagining such a scenario, but fortunately I ABSOLUTELY recognized her NAME and knew exactly who she was and THEN recognized her, and all my her-related memories clicked into place, and everything was fine although of course still awk because AWK SITUATION.

I’m in my mid-thirties, and so at this point my high school self is less than half my age. I looked up my old classmate in the yearbook when I got home, and both of us have really left our high school selves behind. Those senior pictures look like CHILDREN. Thin, smooth-faced children. With late-eighties/early-nineties hair (I have bagel bangs!).

This same week, another former classmate died. It reminds me of when I was in my early twenties and a friend of mine got pregnant, and it was the first time I’d realized that I was now the age when I could do that TOO. I know that seems like it should have been obvious, especially since by that age I’d already been married and divorced and also technically could have been getting pregnant for a good decade, but it was still like a light going on as to the ACTUAL FACT of it. I could have an ACTUAL BABY!!!! It was like that. But, um, with death.

Oh, I DO get SO TIRED of the old idea that men are doing a PERFECT JOB at chores, just IN THEIR OWN WAY, and that women are ONLY complaining because the men don’t do the chores IN THE SAME WAY the women would. Oh, yes. Clearly. If my complaint is that when Paul does dishes there is STILL FOOD ON THE DISHES, obviously my problem is that I’m a control-freak who insists he do the dishes My Way instead of his Perfectly Good Alternative Way.

Listen. I totally understand this control-freak argument if, say, a man likes to do the dishes with a sink full of wash water and a sink full of rinse water, and his wife is all over him wanting him to have a sink full of wash water and then a thin stream of running water in the other sink. OBVIOUSLY that is unreasonable: he has His Way and she has Her Way, and why would she be trying to force him to do it Her Way? Ridiculous! The dishes come out clean either way, so why would one adult be nagging another adult?

But why ON EARTH would anyone try to apply that to situations where it doesn’t even slightly apply? I complain that Paul goes to the store and comes home with pumpkin pie filling instead of pumpkin, and people say it’s wrong of me to demand he do things my way, or they say I should accept that he does things differently than I would. This is not a My Way vs. His Way issue EVEN A LITTLE TINY BIT. This is him making a mistake.

If Paul puts our child’s homework in the recycling bin, must I SAY NOTHING because he is doing things HIS WAY? No. He is doing things THE WRONG WAY. The argument people are looking for is the one where I complain because Paul puts the recycling in all willy-nilly instead of neatly stacked, or where I fuss because he likes to take the bin out on Tuesday night and I think he should take it out Wednesday morning.

In those cases, there’s His Way and My Way, and both ways result in Success: recycling is in the recycling bin and is brought to the curb on time. It BAFFLES me that people want to apply this to cases in which His Way results in the papers being strewn across the yard, or placed in the regular trash, or left on the floor in another room, or not brought out to the curb on time. I’m supposed to consider that “his way of doing things” and not say anything about it because it’s not fair to force him to do things “my way”? Ridiculous!

There are two completely different situations here, which some people try to relate. The first is a situation of His Way vs. My Way. That’s the one where we have all now been THOROUGHLY CHASTENED that we are never ever ever supposed to say ANYTHING to ANYONE about their inviolable right to do things exactly as they feel like doing them, no matter how stupid or inefficient, because after all it DOES result in the chore being done.

The second is a situation of Right Way vs. Wrong Way. I think grown adults should be able to do things (HOWEVER they choose to do them) in a way that results in the chore being DONE. And if they don’t manage to do so, I CERTAINLY DO speak up. I am in a partnership with an adult, and I expect the other partner to act that way. I am not in a 1950s sitcom where The Man bumbles around screwing things up and The Little Woman rolls her eyes and says, “Men! They’re just like CHILDREN!” before backing her car out through the garage door.

Today I am reasoning with myself about Paul.

When he puts away the muffins, and he chooses from the large pile of gallon-sized zip bags one of the ones I use for muffin mix (visibly coated with white powder) (also LABELED IN PERMANENT MARKER), so that all the muffins in the bag are finely dusted with baking soda and flour and spices unrelated to themselves, does this mean he is blind as well as stupid? No.

When he reorganizes the basement, and now the boxes of handmedowns are in “the order he grabbed them” rather than in order by size, and when in fact he has made TEETERING STACKS of boxes so that if I need the size 4-5 long-sleeved shirts for Edward I first need to lift off FIVE BINS, the top one of which is higher than my head, does this mean Paul is a bad husband and father? No.

When he tidies up by putting a whole bunch of papers into the recycling bin without bothering to glance at what those papers ARE, and when some of the papers are Rob’s homework and some are my Dunkin’ Donuts coupons, does this mean I should divorce him and file for full custody? No.

When he goes to the store and comes home with weird specialized versions of things we buy in their normal versions ALL THE TIME (golden flaxseed meal instead of regular, large elbow macaroni instead of regular, canned pumpkin pie filling instead of canned pumpkin), does this mean my life is nothing but one long torment? No.

When I come home from the store where I have been purchasing the grocery items they “didn’t have” (which are all right where they usually are), and he says, “Oh, I need Tabasco sauce,” does this mean the only solution is human sacrifice? No.

My mom and I were at the store and we saw a plaque in the clearance section, and neither of us could make heads or tails of it. It is unfortunate that neither of us has a camera-equipped cell phone, but I copied it down exactly, punctuation and capitalization and centering and all, and maybe one of you will have an insight that will make my headache go away. Here it is:

in a

friend

FRIEND

you find a

second left

I mean, what? What does that MEAN? It seems like we should have a “best answer” contest or something.

It has long been my feeling that even though I am willing to pay a “Target tax” ($1.99 for an item at Target instead of $1.87 for the same item at Walmart), that overall I save money by shopping at Target. This is for two reasons, no three reasons, no FOUR reasons:

1. Target has sales. Target’s everyday price might be higher than Walmart’s, but their sale price is lower.

2. Target has good clearances. Target’s everday price might be higher than Walmart’s, but their clearance prices are way, WAY lower.

3. Cheapness is partly reputation—not necessarily deserved reputation. The FEELING is that Walmart MUST be WAY cheaper because they have a carefully-constructed reputation for it and because they are SO unpleasant in so many ways, but an actual item-by-item examination reveals that some items are a little cheaper and some are a little more expensive and basically they’re not cheaper. This is something I’ve been meaning to do a post on (comparing the prices at Walmart and Target of all the things I buy), but the research involved makes me feel like dying.

4. Walmart is a bunch of cheaters. The price marked on the shelf is lower than Target’s, but the price that rings up at the register is not. Or, the item will be marked “20% more free!” but will ring up at a price about 20% higher than regular price. EVERY store (of COURSE including Target) makes errors at the register, but in general the errors even out: some are in the store’s favor, some are in the customer’s. Walmart’s don’t balance out, and this has been true at all three Walmarts I’ve lived near and shopped at regularly, in three different states.

ANYWAY. So it has been my opinion that Target costs me less money for the way I personally shop: that is, for the particular things/brands I buy, and for the things I buy on clearance, and for how unwilling I am to drag a cart full of children over to Customer Service to fix a bunch of 24-cent pricing errors.

But today I would like to add “The Example of the Luvs Diapers” as YET ANOTHER reason I think Target costs me less money and Walmart’s reputation for cheapness is not fully deserved. Normally I buy all diapers at Target, the store brand ones for daytime and Luvs brand for nighttime. Today my mom and I were running errands and we needed to go to Walmart for yarn, and we weren’t planning on going to Target, and I was nearly out of Luvs at home, so I thought I’d better get a box while I was there. I don’t like giving Walmart my money, but I felt a little guiltily pleased to be “forced into” paying $15.97 for a box of Luvs instead of Target’s $17.99.

Then I got home and OH WHAT HAVE WE HERE.

Target’s box is on the left. Walmart’s is on the right.

Allow a former math medalist to walk you through the math, or perhaps you can join me at the riveting conclusion in the next paragraph. Walmart charges $15.97 for 70 diapers, so to find the per-diaper price we divide $15.97 by 70, and the answer is 22.814 cents per diaper. Target charges $17.99 for 80 diapers, so to find the per-diaper price we divide $17.99 by 80, and the answer is 22.488 cents per diaper.

Per 100 diapers, Walmart charges $22.81 and Target charges $22.48. Target…charges…LESS. That’s a pretty small price difference, and in fact I consider that “the same price.” But the issue here is not that Walmart and Target have a similar price on Luvs; the issue here is that Walmart has their own package size, which is smaller than the standard but not enough smaller to be obviously smaller, and that they charge “less” for it. The impression shoppers receive—even MATH MEDALIST shoppers who notice prices—is that Walmart’s prices are lower. Which would be fine IF THEY WERE. But I’m adding a fifth reason to my list:

5. Walmart has their own sizes on certain things. This gives the impression that they charge less, when in fact they are charging more.

Do you know, I was two classes short of having a minor in economics but I still didn’t understand until THIS WEEK that one of the arguments against chain stores is that they send the community’s money elsewhere. I got that a few days ago in a flash of insight (or possibly from a commercial on the radio I didn’t know I was listening to) as I was driving along mulling. I am in my MID-THIRTIES.

I think part of the problem is that when there are so! many! emotional! arguments! against something, it distracts from the PRACTICAL stuff—and if I hear too much emotional stuff, I generally start assuming there ISN’T much of a practical angle. Like, I am actually NOT sympathetic when I hear that the chain stores are going to put “the mom-and-pop stores” out of business. I think “mom and pop” is an excessively provocative term, considering that chain and non-chain businesses alike are owned by all kinds of people, some nice and some not, some parents and some not, and their motivations tend to be the same: make money.

I DON’T feel like making voluntary donations to keep a smaller company artificially profitable when a larger company can do the same thing more efficiently. And in my experience, small-business customer service varies just as much as chain-business customer service: some are great, some are crap, and not much seems to have to do with whether they’re owned by “mom and pop” or by an international conglomerate. Sometimes you get a jerk, and sometimes you don’t; sometimes a company has good policies, and sometimes they don’t.

But finally I heard it in more economics-minor terms: that all the money the citizens spend at the chain is therefore going out of state. If it were spent at a small, local store, the money would presumably be spent by the local owners at other local establishments; then those other local owners would spend THAT money at other local establishments, and thus the money goes around and around, profiting the locals and also profiting the local government as they take their cut with each changing of hands. OH! I see!

It’s not so clear-cut even then, of course. For one thing, the branch of the chain is still located HERE, so they have to pay taxes here. I think. Don’t they? Or is there something about paying income taxes only where you’re incorporated or whatevs? Still, property taxes, surely. And of course they employ local people, which means the company takes some of their out-of-state money and spends it back HERE. But still, I GET IT: I am in my mid-thirties and I see why smaller local stores can be better for a community.

What I DON’T get yet is how “seeing why smaller local stores can be better for a community” makes any difference once the chains are already here and the local stores are already gone. At THAT point—and that’s the point most of us are at—it’s hard to know what use this knowledge is.

I AM willing to pay a small/reasonable “tax” to shop “a better way” (which is why I’m willing to consistently pay $1.99 at Target for something that is $1.87 at Walmart, or buy the $4.75 partially recycled paper instead of the $3.50 non-recycled), but I’m looking around and I don’t see many options for the “spend local” idea. Non-chain groceries? Only from the farmer’s market, and that’s only certain things and only a few months a year. Non-chain Tylenol? Nothing but a overpriced-beyond-small/reasonable convenience mart, and also of course most of the money still goes TO TYLENOL, which is NOT local. Books? YES! But…again, much of the money still goes to the out-of-state publishers/authors, and also, the difference between local and Amazon goes beyond what I am willing to pay in the “small contribution to the larger good” category. Gifts? YES! But that’s a small part of the budget, and also what about Etsy? I love Etsy. Most of Etsy isn’t local.

You can see how all this might make a Target girl feel…compromised.

I have some MALE FRIENDS AND FAMILY who read this blog, so I like to be very careful to let everyone know what they’re getting into if I’m about to write about something Personal. So be warned: This post contains discussions of Kegels, which are exercises for the girly-bits. And that is ALL this post contains, so you are safe to bail.

Last chance to leave the room before I start using various v-words.

At my last GYN appointment there was a pop quiz on Kegels. I failed. My grade didn’t surprise me any more than failing grade on a physics pop quiz would have surprised me, because Kegels are not in my repertoire of party tricks.

I’ll bet our female ancestors were NEVER ONCE asked to exercise their pelvic floors. They may have had to deal with famine, log cabins and mud huts, crop failure, polio, assorted pestilences, but they were never asked to find a muscle by “stopping the flow of urine.” I have tried this, and it was unhelpful.

But now I am the owner of an actual pamphlet telling me I must do Kegels or else rue it later. The pamphlet takes a threatening tone with me, and I resent it. It shows me a drawing of a woman awkwardly carrying a large bag of groceries as she frantically pushes open the door of a public bathroom. THIS COULD BE YOU, the pamphlet implies. Wait, she has already checked out? This scenario would make more sense to me if she had a cart.

Then the pamphlet feels it has bullied me enough, and it takes a mollifying, patronizing tone. “Kegel exercises don’t require special clothing or equipment,” it reassures me, but I hadn’t been worrying about that. What kind of “special clothing” could there possibly be—let alone equipment? The pamphlet goes on to tell me that “no one can tell you’re doing them, so they can be done almost anywhere.” Oh, I am so sure.

But here is the final straw: after assuring me that Kegels don’t require special equipment, the pamphlet says: “Eventually, special weights that you place in your vagina may be recommended to help make your Kegels even more effective.” I would rather–FAR rather–pee my pants while carrying a bag of groceries.

KFed has left the building.

This visit, I’ve had an insight into my mother-in-law’s behavior. By profession, she works in a home for adults with severe developmental disabilities. I think this has given her an inflated sense of her own intelligence and competence. I think it has also given her certain habits of interpersonal behavior (i.e., telling adults what to do) that have carried over inappropriately into other, non-work relationships. And then let’s say that first one a second time: I think it has given her an inflated sense of her own intelligence and competence.

I would also like to take a minute to speak badly of her former husband, my father-in-law. He doesn’t get much press time because he’s absent, and there aren’t many good anecdotes about absence. One reason I put up with my mother-in-law is that as much as I dislike her, I approve of what she’s doing: she’s regularly traveling a long distance at considerable expense in order to visit her grandchildren. We never visit her, so she comes to us. I may feel like drugging her tea, but I like the concept of her visits, and I hope that if I drive my future daughters-in-law batcrap crazy (and I think statistically it’s likely to happen with at least one) they will nevertheless support the concept of me visiting my grandchildren. And I hope I’ll drive them nuts more in the “buys WAYYYYY too much crap we don’t want or need” category rather than in the “rolls her eyes and does jazz hands until homicide seems like a viable option” category.

My father-in-law, on the other hand, hasn’t ever visited. We let him know about each child’s birth, and he doesn’t respond. I send a packet of photos every month, and he doesn’t respond. I send periodic email updates on how we’re doing and how the kids are doing, and he doesn’t respond. I send an annual Christmas package (this is something I go back and forth on, also annually) and he never responds. The only time we hear from him is every couple of years when he emails me to tell me about his journey to find himself, and to place blame on everyone and everything except himself for his inexplicable behavior (it was a childhood brain illness! it was his upbringing! it’s because everyone spreads lies about him!). Then he disappears for another couple of years.

You know how at first it was so appalling that Britney Spears married that pinehole Kevin Federline, and then pretty soon it was like, “I never thought I’d say this but Britney Spears is making Kevin Federline look good.” My father-in-law is the Britney Spears to my mother-in-law’s Kevin Federline.

My mother-in-law has the greatest respect for a former co-worker, EVEN THOUGH the former co-worker is a Mormon. Despite being a Mormon, that former co-worker is a real good person in many ways!

My mother-in-law didn’t vote for Obama, herself, not because she’s racist. She thinks it would be GOOD to someday have A Black in office! Just not THIS PARTICULAR Black. The fact that she didn’t vote for him reflects positively on her: she is SO AWARE that Blacks = People Too, she can even distinguish one from another!

I was looking for a puzzle piece. She said archly that if I cleaned under my couch she thought I’d find a WHOLE LOT of missing things.

I brought up a bag of chocolate chips from the supply in the downstairs pantry, which is located in the part of the basement reserved for storage and workshop. She commented she’d noticed I wouldn’t need to buy chocolate chips for a good long time, heavens no! When was she inspecting the pantry, I wonder?

I came home from the store. She asked what AMAZING BARGAINS I’d found today. Jazz hands and rolling eyes.

She said she needed to know where our hand mixer was. I guess I don’t expect her to keep a mental inventory of everything in our kitchen, but I think we’ve had the “We don’t have a hand mixer” conversation more than half a dozen times now, so I’d expect it to sink in eventually. Instead, when I said “We don’t have a hand mixer,” she made this face:

Except her eyes were way buggier, and rolling around in her head, and she swung her face from side to side in addition to clapping her hands to the sides of it, and she made a loud strangling sound. I said, “Yes, I don’t know how, but somehow we’ve managed to survive all these years without one. It’s a wonder any of us are alive.” I said it like I was being funny. I was not feeling funny.

During dinner, she said out of the blue that she’d once been to this restaurant where they had “Lumpy mashed potatoes” on the menu. She couldn’t figure out WHY anyone would WANT lumpy potatoes. That is just NUTS. Why would you BRAG that your mashed potatoes had lumps? She supposed it proved they weren’t from a box, but LUMPS? Bleah! …Do I need to specifically say that at this dinner we were eating mashed potatoes and that they contained the occasional lump, or do you know my MIL by now?