INFLATION? What inflation????

"I tell ya boy, it was just a couple of years back that you could get a whole meal in a fancy restaurant for 49 cents...AND get change back..."

I used to cringe when I would hear crap like that from my grandpa and other geezers when they would start to bellyache about how the world was going to hell in a hand basket..blah, blah, blah. (They smelled funny too!)
Now, I can't wait to have a grandkid or two of my own to serve as ground zero for the fifty mega tons of angst I want to unload regarding TODAY'S prices. As it is I nearly reach for my 45 every time some clown on TV relates that inflation is in line. In line with what?! I don't know about you, but lately it seems like just about everything is WAY out of line with the price that it ought to be.

I guess we all have certain prices in mind for various items based on our childhood or some reference point that seems logical to us. For example: when it was time for school to start in the Fall, mom would buy us a couple of nice "school" shirts for $2 each and a pair of new pants which the clerk would ring up for around $5. And now, here we are a couple of years later and I'm thrilled to find a pair of jeans at Costco that are on sale for $13. (They must be good too, they're made in China!) If I actually wanted to dress nicely, I might have to pony up a little more. But, in my mind a shirt should be $2 or $2.50 tops and a pair of nice pants...$5.

Groceries are another story. My reference for grocery items is from the early 60's when I was stocking shelves and bagging groceries for Oscar "The Watermelon King" at Swanson's Super Store in Spencer, Iowa. I'm cursed with the knowledge of what damn near every canned good, baked good, meat department item, and produce product sold for in those days and it makes me crazy, (okay, crazier) to make a trip to the market today. It's nuts! Up until a couple of months ago I was operating on a system where I'd look at what I had in the grocery cart and then take the amount I thought it would cost when the clerk scanned all of my selections and I would double it to estimate what I was going to have to pay. Now, that doesn't work. I'm usually off by 25 to 50%! It's just a damn good thing that all those places take credit cards now. Normal folks can't carry enough cash to function in today's marketplace!

Gasoline...well, I may now officially be a codger. I can remember getting 50 cents worth of regular for a Friday night date. Maybe this isn't a good example...I was always looking to "run out of gas" on a lonely country road in Iowa.

I don't know why I'm going on like this. Maybe I'm channeling grandpa. All I do know is that today I ordered this really cool cardboard stand-up of "The Duke" that I will be taking with me on my next trip to ANY store. When it come time to pay up, I'll point to big John and say, "He's got it."


"Ya wanna run those figures again for me, Pilgrim..."