I think that the economic principles of our town are best illustrated at any one ofWestport’s ubiquitous Starbucks coffee shops.
It must have been about3:00on a Wednesday afternoon a few months ago when I last went to Starbucks. I went there because I wanted some caffeine to rejuvenate me after a full day of living it up at Staples. I went there with the intent of ordering a medium coffee, straight up black. And I went there with the goal of getting my energy fix and then getting out.
But, alas, it was not to be.
When I walked in through the door, I figured that the wait would be negligible, seeing as there was only one customer in front of me. However, the wait was actually about 20 minutes. Why? She proceeded to whip out her cell phone to take a full-length call, and then ordered a $7 drink that I can’t even pronounce.
What the hell?
I guess part of it is that I’ve never been a really fancy guy. My clothes are durable and average priced, I get a haircut from a barber… none of this “hair styling” nonsense, and my greatest expense has always been nutritious, quality food.
I simply don’t see the point of using disposable income to buy things that have no functional purpose. And out of a basic human desire to connect with other people’s mindsets, it used to bother me when I saw people shelling out preposterous amounts of bank for Robek’s smoothies, kids throwing everything that they had at video games, or girls obsessing over those high-top boots.
You’re spending $400 on boots, and you can’t even walk in the snow with them. Are you insane?
Eventually, though, I caught on to the larger principles at hand. Because despite everything, including the recession,Westportwill continue to beWestport, and Westporters will continue to spend with reckless abandon, as they have always done.
This kind of irresponsible consumerism used to anger me, especially because it diametrically opposes one of my core principles, which is to buy and use what I need. But then I came to a sobering, yet exciting conclusion—Westportis a soft market.
If people around here are willing to throw money at faceless corporations, why should they not throw money at me? My hypothesis, like the ones from 8th grade science, was that if I thought about it, then I could exploit the consumerist culture at face value, and make some serious green. And to test this hypothesis, I started off with an experiment.
To test my conception of economic habits inWestport, I first hit up my bro Ziad at Walgreens, and sank a $10 investment into 10 cans of Arizona™ Arnold Palmer Half and Half, which is a formidable combination of iced tea and lemonade. I then brought the cans into school, and attempted to sell them for $2, which is twice their face value. No matter at all; I sold out in about five minutes.
My reasoning as to why it worked?Arizonais a product that virtually all students like, but that bogus “health regulations” keep out of schools, so that they can’t have it. And the disposable income thatWestportparents have trickles down to their children. If these people can drop $6 on a smoothie, they can certainly bequeath a paltry $2 to me.
The same concepts apply to my work outside of school, which includes tutoring. Tutoring is essentially the “Wild West” of academia. There are professionals and teachers whose rates exceed $100 an hour, and they manage to acquire customers. When I tutor, I set a much lower rate, but the rate is also completely arbitrary. It’s just me saying that I think I deserve $20, $30, or $40 an hour. And it works.
InWestport, literally anybody who looks around can find a ticket for the gravy train. Students especially.
Jobs are constantly available. Take keeping score are PAL basketball games, for example. I do that at the rate of $15 a game. All I have to do is either keep track of fouls and points, or operate a scoreboard. Either way, I’m just observing a game that I love, and getting paid for it. It’s practically a vacation!
Yet, it’s difficult to find people to sign up.
Baffling.
Of course, it would be all too easy to slam some fiery rhetoric into a Word document and call it a column. How well, exactly, has my philosophy of working with the style of theWestportmarket been working?
All I can say is that the amount of dollars in my pocket recently eclipsed my number of Facebook friends.
