That pretty much says it all right there. I intend to tell you about a fun little excursion I had in the VM, (Village Market-the local healthy alternative to Walmart, for any non-Southernites who might have happened upon this post) but since I'm a history major, let's take a little excursion of our own to determine the full meaning of my title.
Economical: This comes from the Greek οικονομία, which means 'house law' or household management. [wiktionary.com] This sounds strange, but to the Greeks, economy just happened as a part of everyday life. Families bought and sold at the marketplace, fished, farmed, or otherwise made a living, traded with the merchants, paid taxes, etc. οικονομία wasn't separate from what they did every day, it was integrated into nearly every facet of life.Interestingly enough, as you all know, economy has come to mean something completely different today. The world runs on the financial interactions between various, complex national economies. I happen to find the study of Economy a fascinating one, in part because it's like looking at the framework of a house; you can see the underlying structure for current events. But it also reveals a lot about how people work.
Shopping: A dreadful but necessary activity in modern life whereby we exchange money for things we think will make us happier than the money did. [Personal Experience] I personally dislike this activity very much. Oddly enough, I can hike for hours before my feet hurt as much as they do after only 30 minutes of shopping.
So, now that we have our definitions clear, I shall proceed with the story. Ivan and I woke up one Sunday morning feeling rather hungry. This is a daily dilemma, unfortunately, and today we decided to go to the VM to do something about it. Little did we know that shopping was about to AMBUSH us! We wandered around dazedly trying to choose something to eat out of the plethora of edible options. Suddenly we spied a little cart loaded with Silk soymilk. Wondering what was so special about this cart that it required bright green signs on it, we investigated further. Amazingly, this soymilk was on SALE!
For only $0.99 a box we could be the new owners of our very own carton of soy goodness! (or two or five or ten) We hurriedly availed ourselves of this unexpected opportunity. (Silk soymilk is normally about $3 a carton) This put us in a deal-finding mood and we rushed around the rest of the store procuring in a relatively rapid fashion certain other opportunities that presented themselves, rather forgetting how trying this activity usually was. Suddenly though, as we were competing with several other ladies for the few remaining boxes of soymilk (we graciously let them have the vanilla and we settled for chocolate), we ran out of shopping steam. "My feet hurt," we said simultaneously*. Back in our room we reviewed our purchases: tomato sauce, pasta, jelly, bread, $13 worth of granola (the most expensive thing we bought, but well worth it!), and a total of 19 cartons of Silk Soymilk. (Never fear, it's supposed to last for up to a year on the shelf:) So, what did I learn from this experience? When taking care of your household (or dorm room); practicing οικονομία, the travails of shopping can be somewhat alleviated by feeling like you're saving money. My recommendation? If you have to shop, make sure you get some good deals and wear comfortable shoes!*I think this might have happened, but if not, it should have.
To climb the mountain via a different route, explain this to me. Why is there an almost infinite variety of automobiles, but we're satisfied with only four or five different kinds of web browsers? They all do basically the same thing, so why don't we just pick the best four or five options and get rid of all the rest? Think of the money that would be saved!
