The Simple Life

Do you remember the days when shit was simple?

Not taking a shit mind you, because that’s always been simple. Even when you were wagging school and spent the whole of fourth period under the Naenae over bridge next to the railway tracks like me and my mate Tim often did, taking a shit was simple. I recall the first time I needed to unwrap a picnic bar whilst there I hobbled off to the tree line (from the knees down) and gladly dropped the tweeds. I had been ready to use the natural fauna as a substitute for the ‘ol two ply, but Tim, who had done this before I could tell, suggested I take a few pages out of my maths book. That day was the best use of a maths book, ever.

Tim incidentally, is the only guy I ever had the misfortune of walking in on whilst he was having a quick game of solitaire on his bed. A most unfortunate incident for us both and one that still makes me shiver to this day. Tim dropped out of school a year before me and did nothing but masturbate his brains out for that entire year. Information that would have been useful to me well before that fateful day I turned up unexpectedly after lunch whilst wagging some class. In his defense though, I did arrive unannounced, had my headphones on and failed to knock as the front door was open. In doing so I broke several key rules of WankClub, of which all we males are lifetime members.

Funny thing though is that after all the nightmares, the one lasting memory I have of him in that mental picture is that he actually looked quite bored whilst treating his body like an amusement park ride. I suppose whacking one off every hour would have that affect on you. And this was before the internet too, so all a fella had for inspiration was whatever catalogue came through the mailbox that day or Mums Woman’s Weekly.

But them were the days. Simpler times, when it wasn’t just about making the biggest profit in the shortest amount of time. When pre packaged food portion sizes were actually filling. Ever notice how they seem to be getting smaller and less substantial, but perversely more expensive? That really burns my gnads. But these companies play on the fact that no bugger is ever going to be sad enough to weigh the stuff from week to week and point out the discrepancy.

My best mate’s sister however, is one of them folk. Whilst flatting together she took out a campaign of accountability against a fruit toast maker. Their wrapper said ‘no peel’ and man did she hold them to it. Every slice was meticulously examined and if it contained peel, she circled it with a vivid and sent it back to them. Her reward for doing so? A preformed letter of thanks and a voucher for a freebie. The standard retort of any company that sells a product or service - chuck them free shit and hope it goes away.

I work for a government department and we have a subsidised Cafeteria. That should mean value for money and for a while it has. But now the almighty dollar is more important than a good feed and the prices have gone up whilst not surprisingly, the quality and quantity have come down. My mate DougalMac, who is a bit like a man in a raincoat standing outside a primary school when it comes to percentages (dodgy), works it out to be a 75% increase in price! Not bad for a non profit business aye?!

Certainly the ‘leek and potato’ soup I had the other day was non profit. It was green, but that was about as ‘leek’ as it got. I suspect the grounds man had run the hose through the lawnmower catcher to make it, such was the quality of my soup.

Companies are of course, out to make a profit. But that shouldn’t mean it has to be at a 200% margin. For a few years I worked at a privately owned music store chain that only had a mark up of 75%, which is still a lot when you consider how cheap it is to physically make a CD, but we undercut all the big retailers and kicked their asses in sales. We knew this because a) we were far busier and b) when they eventually bought us out and compared the books, they soiled themselves at just how much money we had made in comparison.

Now admittedly I spent most of my 6th form Economics class hiding the duster out of the reach of our vertically challenged teacher, but even I know that if you sell shitloads more of something at a marginally cheaper price than your competitor you make a lot more money. So why don’t more companies do it today? Create some competition dammit!

Just like back in the simple days. When a dollar at the dairy around the corner from my mate Bruiser's bought you a Popsicle, a K bar, a fifty cent mixture and a game of Street Fighter 2 on the Spacies machine outside. And some big Maori kid would always inevitably ask if you could spot him a 20 bro, or give him seconds. And you would, because he was big. And Maori. And you were Caucasian.

Shit was simple back then and life was good.