Sacramento

Hi everyone. It’s been a while. I’m going to try and get these posts going again on a regular basis. You’ve heard that before from me, I know.

We’re into day 3 of a western US trip. At the moment I’m 10,000 feet above California just skirting the Bay Area on our way from Sacramento to Monterey. Fans of American literature  know the Monterey, Salinas, Carmel area as Steinbeck country. In fact, we’ll be staying at a hotel right on Cannery Row.

As I cringe in screaming terror whilst being claustrophobically hurled at 400 mph in a narrow metal cylinder with short stubby wings weighing 9 tons mocking both common sense and Newtonian physics, allow me a diversion, please. A rant.

When travelling in the United States I unabashedly patronize Dollar Stores for razors, toothbrushes, floss, even occasionally a charging cable for my pile of Apple junk paying less than a third of what I would at Walmart.

The one I go to in Sacramento is truly a dollar store. Not like those lying Canadian ones that range from one to five dollars. There is a huge sign that says

“EVERYTHING $1”

In and out should be a breeze. Nothing to check, question or debate. Yet the line is always held up by a fat lady with body art and screaming kids or a belly bloated, bug-eyed, pants on the ground with large wet spot, wife-beater Gollum, having a heated discussion with a weary cashier of some exploited minority struggling with English. Yesterday I tuned in.

 “These are two for a dollar”

“Yes”

“I only have one”

“Go get one more”

“I only want one. It should be 50 cents”

“Big sign say everything one dollar”

“I want to see the manager”

“I am manager”

“They let a sassy little foreigner like you who can hardly speak American be the manager? I’m going to make a complaint to the owner”

“I am owner. You want two, is one dollar. You want one, is still one dollar and fuck off now”

We had a tour manager a few years back who, to be kind, held opinions that were somewhat right of centre.  He claimed that Canada’s immigration policies were much too liberal and the quotas too high. 

“And what do these people do when they get into our country?” he yelled one day “They open Dollar Stores!”

This was in 2006. From 2001 – 2005  Canada allowed an average of roughly 225 thousand immigrants and refugees into the country per year.

Let’s be conservative and say a total of one million during that period. Most were families with 2 or 3 children so let’s again err conservatively and say 200 thousand of these units opened Dollar Stores. Every five years. By now, at least 600,000 Dollar Stores! Think about it. Soon there will be no room for anything else.