Going…Going…GONE

Guest Post by Jerry Newfield

The Incredible Shrinking and Our Path to Dissolution

I first noticed Trader Joe’s had reduced the size of their GF white sandwich bread when I put a slice of my usual prepackaged cheddar cheese on top of it and found that half the slice covered the bread. I had been eating that brand of bread every day (despite the holes) for the last six or seven years. That first change was probably about three years ago followed by two more reductions, including one in May of this year. When I last bought some loaves (about 6-8 weeks ago), the loaf size had been cut by (my estimate) a third.

In order to maintain the same retail price, the company first cut the dimensions of the loaves and then cut the number of slices in each bag. While nearly intolerable, I probably would have replaced my anger with bites of toast or sandwich, but then I tasted the bread and discovered it wasn’t the same bread at all. I always toast it first and enjoyed the texture, but the new one was chewy, not firm and had an entirely different taste. The new recipe had more sugar and many more ingredients. I know this because I happened to have a bag that had contained the old bread and compared it with the new.

To me, this brand was dead. I returned nine loaves to the store where I bought them.

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About four or five years ago I went to my local post office early to send out some packages for my small business. The USPS opened at 7:30 or 8:00 AM. The sign now said they opened at 9:00 AM. I was shocked. I had always been a fan of the USPS and took to heart the motto, “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.” I had always regarded the early and late hours of the retail post office to be sacrosanct. Naive of me I know, especially in the midst of the scramble to the mountaintop, when all our leaders bent their knees to worship the Great Digital Transfiguration, and the number of mailboxes was radically reduced, and the USPS budget was put in the crosshairs of politicians.

This was the late stage of the same era that began with the rerouting of manufacturing away from the home country and then the routine unopposed automation of common occupations, such as telephone operator, secretary, airport ticket processor, gas station attendant, you name it, and continuing on that path to destroy supermarket occupations, cab drivers, truck drivers, copy editors, reporters, lawyers, thus reaching from blue collar country into white collar territory and above, thanks AI, our new Mr. Moonlight, we love you!

But I digress.

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Earlier this year I tapped my large store of regional rate priority mail boxes to ready some packages and took them to the post office where I was told Regional Rate had died suddenly. The regional rate was a great thing for small businesses like mine, allowing us to send tracked, timely material to our customers at a cost a few dollars lower than the published rate.

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With the demise of independent drugstores, most of us use one of the chains. For many years I have shopped at Jewel-Osco where the pharmacy was open 24 hours. Once, having taken too Celebrex, I felt as if I had imbibed six cups of coffee and was bouncing off the walls. I called the pharmacist at 2:00 AM and he talked me down.

Now the pharmacy closes at 10 PM. This change might have taken place after CVS purchased the Jewel’s pharmacies, although the name hasn’t been changed. My point is there is less and less for the people. Have a problem? Did you know you can do anything you need to do by going to our website, dropdead.com? You can pay your bill, ask a question we can’t answer, and feel despair.

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Need to call an airline, your cable company or some other mega-business to help in some way? You can see how long yours truly spent waiting to speak with someone, anyone at American Airlines a few months ago:

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Homelessness is on the rise. The cost of housing keeps climbing. The WSJ describes some of what is going on:

“The fact that we are seeing elderly homelessness is something that we have not seen since the Great Depression,” said Dennis Culhane, a University of Pennsylvania social policy professor and researcher with expertise in homelessness and housing issues.

Ah, the answer might lie in buying a tiny house. You won’t be so happy and you won’t own much, but at least you will have a roof over your head. Be grateful, practice mindfulness and smoke some weed. You’ll be fine.

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It’s a funny thing, but in addition to the war on cars (more about this in a future post), COVID-1984 ushered in an enhanced (“stay safe”) crisis of public transportation. Despite the fact that we are told everyone should ride public transport for the good of the planet, people are afraid to do it even as the reliability and stability of the entire system is under unprecedented stress. In addition to crime, people smoking pot and playing loud music and screaming on El trains, we now have ghost buses. Rent a bike or an electric scooter, contribute to the developing chaos on the streets, but that way you pay your own way and help us build 15-minute cities, smart cities, C40 Cities, or whatever you want to call them.

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Driving on Argyle Street in Chicago yesterday, I happened on a CARE USA, food distribution point and stopped to film the astonishing mix of people waiting to get something to eat. They were quiet, polite, patiently waiting their turn.

Today, on Sheridan Road, I encountered another place where hungry people waited for food:

So, where does this gradual diminution end? For the many who have died from the novel injectable, the struggle is over. For the many who have been injured, the beat goes on. Will this path end with a bang, a whimper, a plea?

Or does It end here ?

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