So I looked up this week and LightGirl has grown again. She needs new clothes … AGAIN! I think there must be laws against growing this fast or this much. And I think it must be painful, although she doesn’t complain. So off we went this evening to get some bottoms; some shorts (because it’s still warm enough, especially in North Carolina) and some long pants. We went to a large department store here in town. I also needed to replace my purse. I hate that chore. Once I get a purse, I like to keep it for a long time. This latest one did not last long enough. I just got used to it when the strap broke.

There we were in the department store. The selection was dizzying. I cannot really handle all those choices. It literally makes my head spin. I’m un-American in this … I do not enjoy shopping. In fact, I cringe when I think of it and I try to avoid it. We did manage to find two pairs of shorts and two pairs of long pants, and a pair of flip flops for LightGirl and a new purse for me which promises to completely organize my whole life for $20.80 … well $32.00, but it was 35% off.

What really bothers me is how many items are “Made in China” or “Made in Sri Lanka” or some other Asian country. It’s not that I don’t want to buy from Asian countries because I have something against Asians. I don’t. Or that I think the products are cheap. It’s that the products **are** cheap. They are too cheap. You see, I’ve come to realize that everything, every single thing that is for sale in this country and indeed, every where, costs a certain amount of money to make. If I (as the final customer) do not pay that price for that product, then someone else must absorb the cost of production, transportation, etc. Usually that someone else is the lowest man on the totem pole … a woman or child in the factory that produced the item in China or Sri Lanka. The next someone would be the person or people who are working the modes of transportation to get the stuff to me here (boats, and trucks). The last someones would be the people working the floor of the store where I buy it. Those people are all absorbing my “low prices.” When I don’t pay the actual price that something costs, someone else absorbs the difference and pays with their hunger, and their health and their well-being. And somehow that just doesn’t seem right.