A friend was telling me how when he was back visiting people
in our home town, everyone kept telling him that taxes in Kansas were just too
high. Several factoids had been offered in favor of arguments to cut whatever spending
could possibly be cut. I tried to explain that while a more liberal person
could try to do some research to try to counter the conservative’s arguments,
it would be futile. I wrote this fable instead. Based on two true groceries stores
that once existed, one a little to the left of Main and one a little to the
right, nothing is true about the main character except her name.
A fable:
How Kansans
know that their taxes are just too high
Bert Haverkate-Ens
Georgina told me that she won’t shop at Paul & Ray’s anymore
because their prices are too high. She always goes to Vogt’s. Georgina told me that
she once went to Paul & Ray’s to buy a gallon of milk and then the next
week she went into Vogt’s and saw that their milk was much cheaper.
Why, Georgina said, she had saved nearly 10 cents at Vogt’s
– a dime – and then – and then, Georgina said, I know that a dime doesn’t sound like much,
but if you add up those nickels and dimes, pretty soon you’re talking real
money. And that was just one gallon of milk. Imagine the bread and the carrots
and – and the meat. Why, meat is expensive to begin with. Well, Paul &
Ray’s is simply way too expensive, Georgina said.
I asked her whether she had checked the price of broccoli.
Well, what would that have to do with anything? Georgina
said. Even if they undercut Vogt’s by a penny on some kind of sale - you know that’s
just their way to get you into their store to buy milk and all their other
high-priced items – what does the price of all the broccoli in China have to do
with anything? I could have bought a half-a-dozen bunches of broccoli and then when
you add in that there milk and I would still have walked out of Paul & Rays
paying way too much. Do I have to show you my receipt? I mean, do you think I
am lying to you? I personally experienced this incident I am telling you about not
less than six months ago.
I had tried to calm Georgina down by suggesting that perhaps
a more comprehensive survey by some unbiased shoppers, say a group of people
from Peabody - or maybe Wichita - over time and such - might give a person a
more accurate comparison.
Oh no, Georgina said, I saw those numbers with my own eyes.
I paid eight cents more for a single gallon of milk at Paul & Rays than I
paid at Vogt’s. And besides, I don’t need no snooty over-educated, under-common
sensed Wichita people to tell me what is as plain as the nose on my face. You
can fool some of the people some of the time, and maybe you can fool all of the
people some of the time, but you can’t fool me by waving a bunch of statistics
under my nose. Everybody knows that you can prove anything you want to prove with
statistics. Why I just read in an old Reader’s Digest that 47% of Americans
pay too much for their groceries, and they don’t even realize it. Well, not me, no sirree. Even if those Wichita
shoppers used real numbers - and I wouldn’t put it past them to round up or
round down to serve their preconceived big city notions - they are still likely
to keep just twisting those numbers until those numbers say just whatever they
want those numbers to say.
Georgina went on explaining to me more than I thought
possible about statistics, finally concluding: as if I don’t know that 2 plus 2
doesn’t equal 5. Georgina harrumphed. And then Georgina looked me hard in the
eye saying, you’re not trying to tell me I’m, stupid, are you? It’s really
quite simple, really, you’ll pay more for groceries if you go to Paul and
Ray’s. I don’t know any one – at least not one good, decent, hard-working
person, that is, - that doesn’t shop at Vogt’s. Are you trying to tell me that we’re
all fools? Is that really what you’re running me around the bushes about?
Why, you listen to me, my mother told me never to listen to
people who are just a little too big for their britches. She told me when I was
just a little girl not to shop at Paul & Rays. She told me she once bought
a gallon of milk there and when she got home it smelled just a little like it
might be about to go sour in another day or two. Why we might all have died of
food poisoning in our sleep if she hadn’t dumped that milk down the sink. She
told me to let that be a lesson to me, and, well, I am a little embarrassed to
admit that when I was in a hurry a few months ago, and I went in and bought
that gallon of milk at Paul & Ray’s, and well, now just you lookie here now:
My mama’s advice to always go to Vogt’s turned out to be as right as rain. I’m
not saying their food is all bad at Paul & Ray’s, but it definitely costs
too much. Everybody knows that, Georgina said.
***
The moral of the story: Always vote for the name behind the
‘R’ on the ballot. You will certainly be able to come up with a reason that
makes sense to you later, no matter what anybody else tries to tell you.
If only there actually was more to Kansas politics than
that, but I fear that there is simply is no arguing with logic like this.
Harrumph!
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