Corn Is Corn....Surviving A tough Economy

" John, corn is corn," Jan told me. Jan was a single mother of 3 kids and she lived on a tight budget. She was visiting me one Saturday and had decided to fix us a meal. When she looked into my pantry ( chicks dig a pantry ) she found cans of Del Monte corn. " You can buy 4 cans of the store brand for what you paid for a single can of Del Monte. You're paying for the advertising, marketing, packaging etc." As she continued to lecture...um...speak, I lasped into my "Charlie Brown" mode, I'd perfected this method of tuning people out during almost 20 years of marraige. As she continued, I heard Charlie Brown's teacher, " wah wah wah wah wah wah." She knew I had tuned her out and said, " you know what, you get someone to fix the Del Monte corn, I'll fix brand X and we'll see if you can tell the difference." "Ok, we'll have a Corn Challenge," I said as I laughed.

Now while I'll agree that some store brands are as good as the premium brands, there are some areas where I refuse to compromise. My canned veggies were one of those areas. Raisin Bran, got to be Kelloggs, don't put a bowl of Post Raisin Bran in front of me, I'd rather eat bark from the tree of your choice. But with the real estate market being very bad and my pension check what it is, I make less than half of what I earned at UPS. So these past few years, I find myself pushing my grocery cart and my mind speaking to me " do you really need the Charmin Double Ply, can't you live with the Sandpaper brand? Sure that bread is like chewing on cardboard but it's 29 cents a loaf. Here comes an attractive woman, suck in that gut, smile, and try not to embarrass yourself." Ok while the last thought has nothing to do with choosing my purchases, it does have to do with checkout ::rimshot::.

Flip Wilson once said, " the cost of living keeps going up, and the chance of living keeps going down." I paid $2.69 a gallon for gas today, I find myself cutting back in every phase of my life,I never thought my two favorite forms of entertainment would be blogging and Kroger. I really feel for young families with several kids and a mortgage.

Oh!!! Jan and I never had the Corn Challenge, some guy with a mullet and a motorcycle rode into her life and she rode out of mine. Maybe I oughta go with that biker look, perhaps a tattoo.." Born 2 Blawg" ::grin:: Peace to all...John