Bundle Up

With a mom and pop establishment just around the corner from my childhood home, I was often tasked with purchasing a half gallon of milk or a loaf of bread. When I stood at the counter to pay, I handed over $.31 for the bread, a quarter for the milk. If I wanted a treat and had a cent or two to spare, I paid specifically for the strawberry laces, or for the piece of adding machine tape with rows of candy dots or a wax bottle filled with an ounce of flavored water. In those days, I got what I paid for, and I paid for what I got. I grew up thinking that’s how the world worked.

But perhaps not. I recently discovered that if I wanted a junior bacon cheeseburger, fries, and a Coke at a certain fast food establishment, I could pay for them separately, or else order a four for four “deal,” with my three items plus chicken nuggets, available for less money than my three preferred selections. I didn’t want the nuggets, as I don’t eat chicken nuggets, but it cost me less money to get them and throw them away. Go figure.

The practice is a marketing ploy called bundling. Growing up in Buffalo winters, I was used to bundling up, hat, scarf, mittens, and even the Wonder Bread bags in my snow boots. But that’s not what bundling means in marketing. Instead, a product bundling strategy is a marketing approach where multiple products or components are packaged together into one bundled purchase.

I encountered this with a cell phone, as a package deal provided a “free” tablet and some kind of contraption for my car that I had no desire to use. It popped up again with Spectrum, the new name for Time-Warner, the cable provider in Stark County. Larry made the arrangements for our cable and internet service, and when I received our first bill, I was surprised to find we were paying $29.99 (plus taxes and fees) for a home phone line. Now we haven’t had a home phone for years, and have no need of one now. We don’t even have a phone to plug into the service. So why a home phone on our bill? Well, chalk it up to product bundling.

I tried to cancel the service on line, but there was no way to delete service, only to add more channels to our package. When I called, I spent time on hold, and finally the customer service rep explained that the product was bundled, and that we would get the best price if we took all three services. “But I don’t want a home phone!” Yes, but we give you a discount on your other products when you sign up, and when you have our home phone, you can call Puerto Rico for free (that’s what the small print said, so I could check on our friends who’ve been without electricity for months without paying extra on my cable bill – if I bought a phone). In frustration, I finally terminated the call. I’ll try again when I’m at a better place mentally (smiley face).

Bundling is not limited to sales and service. It’s even how our federal government works (or doesn’t, given our history with government shutdowns). Want a spending package? Let’s see if we can convince the American people that bundling in CHIP funding, DACA, and money for “the wall” is the best deal. Why don’t they just pass a separate bill on CHIP funding, a bill on immigration, a bill on border security, and a budget? Why bundle them together? Bargaining power, leverage, manipulation? Whatever happened to congressional hearings, floor debate, and voting on individual issues?

In the 2016 election, the term “draining the swamp” resonated with many people. But like the fast food server or the cable company representative, the problem doesn’t lie as much in the swamp-dwellers (people) as in the swamp itself (process). What if we allowed the governing process to concentrate on what the people of our country need, one issue at a time, instead of loading up the swamp with unwanted chicken nuggets? Seems to me it’s worth a try.  

The Story of Our Own Times

Our friend Bill has played the leading role in many funny stories which tend to be repeated whenever his name is mentioned. He purchased a Cabbage Patch doll out of a stranger’s trunk; later  his young daughter wailed, “there’s no belly button, it’s not real!” He bought a tree from a man warming his hands over a fire in a barrel on Christmas Eve – he later learned the lot owner had closed up two hours earlier. He’s also famous for a moving story – when Bill’s family was transferred by the Salvation Army, he did all the packing because his wife was ill. Everything they owned went into industrial strength black garbage bags with no labels. What a nightmare.

Packing up our belongings for our move to North Canton, I pledged I wouldn’t follow in Bill’s footsteps. I had my supplies organized, and would carefully mark each box. My plan was to start at the top of the house by clearing out the attic, then move to the second floor to sort out our bedrooms and downsize the toys I’d collected for the lovely Madelyn Simone and the delightful, determined Elizabeth Holiday, as we wouldn’t have space for such a wonderful playroom in our new home. The basement and the barn received some attention early on in the purging and packing, but I left the dining room and kitchen for last, knowing I’d be taking boxes eastward even after the movers left with our furniture.

Not the wisest idea. First morning in our new home: eggs and no frying pan, bread and no toaster. What was I thinking?

Determined to get this job done once and for all, I sat on the floor of the Ashland dining room late into the night, listening to the lonesome house creak and groan. Surrounded by boxes, plastic tubs, packing tape, bubble wrap, and a tall stack of newspapers, I began the slow process of wrapping plates, cups, bowls, and yes, frying pans.

I was glad our faithful paper carrier delivered the Times-Gazette to our doorstep every morning. I certainly couldn’t have wrapped our belongings in the waves of the internet! Following my parents’ example, I’ve read the newspaper from front to back since elementary school days. I grew up with Beetle Bailey and Dennis the Menace, and loved Charlie Brown, Linus and Lucy of the Peanuts gang long before they became television stars. I learned the importance of community involvement through the pages of our local newspaper, and gained a daily update on what was happening around the world. I still have the front pages that marked my childhood – the assassinations of JFK, RFK and MLK, and Armstrong’s first steps on the moon.

As a young child, I avidly read Ann Landers, whose view of problem-solving and people has helped shaped mine. A young girl wrote about being forbidden to see a “boy” who was in the Army. Ann’s answer is classic: “Dear E.V., If you ‘just graduated from grade school,’ you are about thirteen years old, Chicken. Uncle Sam needs men – you don’t. Listen to your mother, she is right. And about that boyfriend – his brains must be AWOL.” Ah, what advice, what memories.

Wrapping more dishes, I thought about the role of the newspaper within the Ashland community. These discarded pages recorded the births and deaths, weddings and divorces of Ashlanders. They chronicled the changes occurring in town, from restaurant openings to election results. Sports headlines noted victories and defeats, little league, high schools, university, and old geezers. Here it was, the heart of our identity.

Alone in that echoing dining room, I caught a whiff of printer’s ink as the lifeblood of our community passed through my hands. Historian Henry Steel Commager said it best: the newspaper is “the raw material of history; it is the story of our own times.” The journalists and other staff at the T-G labor day after day, even knowing their efforts may soon be consigned to the recycling pile or a box of china, because they are determined to tell the story (and stories) of our times. Glad today for the First Amendment, the freedom of speech, and the role of the press. Read on!

Whatever Became of Sin?

One of the tasks associated with our move into a smaller home has been downsizing our possessions. I’m not sure I did too well with that, as there are still too many boxes labeled “basement,” which probably could have been given away, recycled, or trashed. But I did downsize my library by about half, parting with books that have found a loving home on the shelves of friends or will soon appear on the tables at the next library book sale.

A book staring at me from the discard pile did cause me to pause for a moment at its title: “Whatever Became of Sin?” by psychiatrist Karl Menninger, and its query has been nagging at me for weeks. Sin, according to Merriam-Webster, is “an offense against religious or moral law, or an action that is or is felt to be highly reprehensible.” Most world religions have some concept of sin, and much of what we recognize as the law of our land has a basis in what has historically been identified as sin, particularly defined by the last five of the ten commandments (murder, adultery, theft, false witness, and covetousness).

How are sins classified? Within the Christian framework, a Greek monastic theologian, Evagrius of Pontus, created a list of eight offenses, and in the late sixth century, Pope Gregory the Great made an adjustment to Evagrius’ list, combining a couple of the sins and adding envy to pride, gluttony, lust, anger, greed, and sloth. Theologically, these are known as the seven deadly sins.

We may not like using the word sin in current day terminology, instead choosing less indicting words such as shortcomings, moral failure, mistake, oversight, indiscretion, slip-up, hiccup, lapse in judgment, or (my favorite) foible, a minor weakness or eccentricity in someone’s character. Whatever did become of sin, Dr. Menninger? A victim of euphemisms?

Moving from religion into money and politics, one potential field where sin and temptation is present.,I’ve been watching the climb of the stock market with fascination and concern in recent weeks. How much higher can it go before it falls? Robert Reich warns: “. . . but the profits will stop, because there won’t be enough people with enough money to buy all the goods and services corporations can produce. And when the music stops, the stock market will crash. And what will the oligarchs do then?”

Meanwhile, Reich reminds us, one out of five American kids are in poverty. Most workers haven’t had a raise in thirty-five years, with no job security and no unemployment benefits. Is a booming economy really of benefit to all? Or is there a whiff of gluttony, lust, or greed?

It’s easy to look to the news cycle for areas of criticism, but my pondering has pointed the finger at my own heart as well, nudged by words about eyes, logs and specks. As a minor yet troubling example, even when we put an offer in on a house we could afford and manage as we move deeper into our golden years, I kept looking at the houses listed on Zillow, sometimes with a “I wish we could have gotten that one” sigh. Since being introduced to Pinterest, I’ve looked at hundreds of images of kitchens, living rooms, bedrooms, and home offices – if only we had that window, that space, that view. My casual comment, “Pinterest is the devil” may have more truth to it than I recognized. Envy and greed at work?

I found William B. Bradshaw’s words to be convicting, not just of our culture but of myself as well: “Little by little we have become accustomed to, and stopped finding fault with, sin – our own and the sin of others. We as a society do what we want, find ways to justify what we are doing, and ignore the consequences.”

It’s tempting to discredit the concept of sin as old-fashioned and out-of-touch, but Bradshaw calls us to account by his last word: consequences. Just as loving actions have consequences, so too do pride, gluttony, envy, lust, anger, greed, and sloth, both to ourselves and others. As for Menninger’s question? I’m looking in the mirror to see what’s in my eye.