Resources / Ripples & Wipeouts

Okay, I allowed myself to believe that we had made it through.  That we were closer to spring than we were to winter and that warmer days would soon be here.  Wrong!  On the first day of March, the east coast was walloped with another 5+ inches of snow.  And not just snow, but bitterly cold temperatures, thus securing the presence of snow on the ground for at least the rest of the week.

The forecast was ominous; we were braced for the worst.  Most areas didn’t receive as much snow as was anticipated – whew!  Even better – snow day!  All the schools in our area were closed.  The local news would have done better to run the scroll with the names of the institutions that decided to open, as there would have been fewer names to list.

Believe it or not, I’m not writing about the weather.  What prompts me to write this piece is the adventure my husband conceived to go in search of gloves and a hat for our son.  You see, our son too thought that warmer days were just around the corner, and as winter was winding down, decided to lose a glove and his hat.  Everyone knows that one glove is not enough.  So before he went out sledding with friends, he dug into the bin in our closet in which orphaned gloves and “cast asides” reside with wildly colored hats that no one wears.  When he returned from his day of sledding he informed us that neither item worked – the hat was too small and the gloves did not keep his hands warm.  Let the adventure begin!

We were onto our second stop in search of these elusive items when I decided to let my husband in on a not-so-well-kept secret:  there wouldn’t be any winter hats or gloves to choose from because retailers have long since moved on to stocking spring merchandise.  That’s right, spring.  My sister, who for 20 years worked as a buyer for a junior retail chain, says that once upon a time, people used to travel to warm places in the winter and they needed new clothes to wear.  So the retailers, taking their cue from the haute couture market whose clientele cruised off to warm-weather destinations, decided to put warm weather clothes on the floors of their stores for the regular folk who could afford to take winter trips.  Then the idea expanded when retailers became anxious and wanted to cash in on the “back-to-school” racket.  Dark colors, corduroy, and turtle necks appeared in stores in August!  My kids were wearing shorts when they returned to school.  I was still picking sand that had become embedded in my kids’ heads when we got our first progress reports!  Who wants to see corduroy in August?  But programmed we were and off we went to buy what we obviously wouldn’t be able to wear comfortably for at least two months.

And now, finally, I’ve arrived at why I’m writing this piece.  We are in a new economy – retailers get with the program.  It’s all about buy now and use now.  I need a new pair of winter gloves now, and I can afford them now.  I don’t need and can’t afford a new sundress.  I need rock salt now, not a barbeque grill.  I must admit, it is nice to stroll through the stores and look at the pretty spring colors and daydream about the day my oven once again becomes extra storage space.  As I walk through the stores, I find myself softly chanting, “grill baby, grill!” But seriously, we all need to take another look at how we do business.  We need to think outside the proverbial box if we want to maintain some semblance of the consumer culture that is American culture – and really, shouldn’t we be changing that as well?

--Joan Grangenois-Thomas