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Jewish World Review
Dec. 28, 2011/ 2 Teves, 5772
More expensive by the dozen
By
Jim Mullen
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
I just got a shirt back from the laundry today. $6.75. When did the price jump from $2.25 a shirt to $6.75? There must be some mistake.
"No mistake. They haven't been $2.25 since Bush -- the first one -- was president." I guess I haven't been paying attention.
Sue and I ate at a local restaurant that sells homemade muffins, sandwiches and boutique sodas and chips from companies I've never heard of. We both had a sandwich and a soda. $26.41. Mistake on the bill? No.
Gas was $3.58 a gallon when I filled up. Whew! At least it's not $4.50 again. But I have a feeling it will be.
"We should be drilling for more oil right here, right now," my friends say. They seem to think the oil companies are going to turn around and give everyone free oil if we let them do what they want. I bet them $10,000 that oil will end up being more expensive. Last year I would have bet them only $5, but the price of betting has gone up.
The cost of air travel is through the roof. Airlines haven't started charging for carry-on luggage yet, but you can bet they're thinking about it. The airlines blame the high prices on the cost of security; someone has to pay for strip-searching Grandma and the see-through-your-clothes X-ray machines.
Airlines could save a lot of money on security, though. Just make a rule that instead of air marshals with guns, some big executive from the airline must be on each flight. In coach. No terrorist would ever get on the plane, you can count on it. And suddenly, there'd be plenty of legroom. That's what I call having skin in the game. Your own skin.
Getting my teeth cleaned costs $125. A night in the hospital is $2,500 for "observation." God forbid hospitals should actually try to cure you. Sue and I could go on a two-week-long cruise for that -- with gourmet meals and sunshine. Which is probably why I'm sick -- not enough gourmet meals and sunshine. Maybe that's the cure the hospitals have been looking for.
I don't want to sound like one of those old guys who just talks about what the price of things used to be when he was a kid. I'm talking about the difference in the price of things since last year. Apples, $1.99 a pound. That's two apples. Tiny avocados, five for $6. Steak is cheaper than fish.
The housing crisis is still going on. I keep reading how much home values have declined. It's a good time to get a deal on real estate, they say. So all the million-dollar homes are now half a million dollars. What a great deal! Only, I don't have close to half a million dollars to spend on a house. A hotel-room-sized studio apartment across the street from where we used to live in Manhattan is on the market for $1.5 million. On top of that is a $3,000-a-month maintenance fee. What was it before the housing collapse?
There's a show on HGTV called "House Hunters International," and each episode follows a couple who is either moving to another country or buying a second home in another country. When asked about their budget for the new house, they always say something like, "We're looking for something in the $450,000 range." They also don't seem too worried about where the money's coming from to put their two kids through college. But the most disturbing thing is that they always turn out to be average, normal people -- she's a nurse and he's an accountant. And they can afford a second home, in a foreign country? Which means they can also afford to get there and get the time off to enjoy it and all that that entails.
"What," I ask myself after watching the show, "am I doing wrong?" It's also what Sue says every day after poking her head into my office.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Comment by clicking here.
Jim Mullen is the author of "It Takes a Village Idiot: Complicating the Simple Life" and "Baby's First Tattoo."
Previously:
In one year and out the other
Thank heaven it's Black Friday
Planning for the long term ---- tomorrow
READING THIS WILL MAKE YOU THIN AND HAPPY!
The Seven Secrets of Success
It's tough living off the gridIt's tough living off the grid
How not to clean the houseIt's tough living off the grid
The yellow badge of cowardice
Any way you slice it
Home sweet homeschooling
Don't Head for the Borders
Money ball
Golf and death go hand in hand
Tune in, turn off, unplug
The radar curtain
Is Steve Jobs clouding my privacy?
The gift of garbage
Johnny Intern, Ph.D.
Twenty-foot fences make good neighbors
You must remember this…
TV experts and real news
Hey caller, where's the fire?
My sad cushy life
Pacemaker, don't you mess around with me
Big Brother is skinny
Flight of the snowbirds
This HDTV needs child support
Dear Future: Where's the dome?
Not so elementary, my dear Watson
A vacation revolution
Your call is very unimportant to us
Life: There's no app for that
Bam! Practical kitchen magic
Poisoning myself
Ban Huck Finn in schools --- even the sanitized version!
$38,000 for traffic and weather updates
2011 Predictions: Nostradamus was a hack
2010: A year of annoying junk
Why do bad things happen to stupid people? Moving on from movie theaters
Money never sleeps, but it does pass out
President Trump kept it classy
Stalking your college kid won't change a thing
Putting my life in Jeopardy
Mo' government, mo' problems
iLostIt
Dressed for excess
Expert tease
The mysteries of Jersey
You are a toilet, where am I?
Don't we all cheat at the game of life?
What happens when I forget where Google is?
Don't let the doorman hit you on the way out
Picasso fiasco
Purple (hair) Daze
Let me hear your body talk
Working from work
Babies deserve clean restrooms, too
3-year-old bear-killers are a thing of the past
Money-making ideas on the fly
Collecting and hoarding
Chain of fools
Please come pick up your acting awards, ESPN commentators, you've earned them
You've been superpoked by the U.S. gov't
e-Readin', e-Writin' and e-Rithmatic
A pose by any other name
Warning: Column contains 2010 spoilers
He loves only gold, only gold
Think about direction, wonder why …
Flushing your money down a diamond-studded toilet
More like wack Friday
The good, the ad and the ugly
The desert of the real
Let books be large and in charge
I was insulting people way before the Internet
GPS drill sergeant: Left, right, left!
Butterfly in the sky, you make winds go twice as high
Music to my ears it's not
You don't light up my life
Fair or not: Country living is far from Little House
A parable for the ages
Top 100 Cable news stories of the century
Green dumb
A developing story
Thinking outside the lunch box
What's good for the goose is good for the scanner
Newspapers will survive, but network TV?
A really big show of generation gaps
When pigs flu
The reports of our decline have been greatly exaggerated
Mergers and admonitions
Invest in gold: little, yellow, different
Stuck in Folsom Penthouse
Collecting karma
Setting loose the creative juice
It's all in the numbers
You're damaging your brain with practical skills
The real rat pack
The unspeakable luxury of the Park-O-Matic
Gross-ery shopping
© 2009, NEA
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