Thursday, November 30, 2006

Further Reductions Taken. And Accepted.

One advantage of becoming poor after having money is that in my former life I had the chance to develop good taste. Yes, I know, money can’t buy you taste. Or love for that matter. But it allows you to be exposed to the finer things and finer (not necessarily morally) people. This, in turn, allows you to enter the “knock-off” phase of life with confidence and vision. Allow me to elaborate. Let’s say you have $15 to buy a new outfit. Yes, you heard right. Fifteen dollars for a whole outfit. Now, you can either go to the dollar store and buy something with let’s say… three-dimensional embellishment (feathers, glitter, puffy embossments, or vinyl candy canes during the holiday season) or go to Target and put together something smashing from the “further reduced” racks. (My heart literally leaps with joy when I see the sales associates approaching with the electronic price guns. It means another price cut.) Recently, I put together a printed chiffon-esque tunic with a sassy tulle skirt all in shades of teal and gray. Yummy.

The only downside to my frugal couture is that I have the urge to immediately tell everyone that the outfit only cost X dollars. Kind of defeats the purpose of savvy shopping, doesn’t it?

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Alms for the Poor

I spent a lot of years walking jauntily down the Magnificent Mile in Chicago in warm winter coats and snappy new boots. Or sashaying in a flippy skirt and whatever sandals were in style that summer. I would either ignore or get angry with the street people who aggressively put the hit on me for money. I would avert my eyes, just like many of you do. Or I would think with disdain, “I work for a living. The hell I’ll give you my hard-earned money so that you can buy drugs.” So, you want to hear the most interesting twist of fate? Since I have found myself in considerably less fortunate circumstances, I have given more money to those on the street than I did all those many, many years when I was fat and happy. Even when I’m down to my last bit of change that I have scrounged out of my coat pockets or seat cushions, I give a little. And I take the subsequent “God Bless You!” truly to heart.

Will Bag 4 Food

Ah yes. The discount food store. Places like Aldi and Food 4 Less. These retail operations have proliferated madly in the last five years. Or maybe I am now just being forced to take notice. I feel that, if nothing else, these places prepare me for a job as a bagger. I almost wonder if we will soon encounter an even less service-oriented establishment. What would that be like? Would you enter your choices on a cold gray terminal and catch your groceries as they tumble out of a large chute as you stand outside shivering in a parking lot, trying to corral a frozen ham as it skids across the pavement? I think someone will soon be calling me about my new concept. What shall I name it? Retail Rectum? Love Food Canal? Spew and Chew? Any ideas?

Seriously though, I do really admire one thing that Aldi does. At first it incensed me, then it made sense to me. The pay-for cart strategy. All the carts are linked together outside the store. You have to pop a quarter in the slot to unlink a cart. Then, when you're done shopping, you get your quarter back by returning the cart and linking it back into place. Sure solves the runaway cart crisis. However, I have heard a lot of grumbling from street people.


Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Opting Out

Here’s the irony that sparked my journey to a hardscrabble life. Unlike a few other times in my life as an advertising writer and creative director, this time was different. I actually quit, rather than was dismissed, from my last full-time position. I’ll briefly tell the tale. The fellow I had actually campaigned for to consult with some of our clients to help them shape their brands became increasingly indispensable to the firm that employed me.

After an initial honeymoon period, I began to feel he actually was arrogant, full of self-puffery and only reiterated the same rhetoric in different guise time after time. When he shushed me in a rebranding committee meeting at my agency, I felt that he had little understanding of what makes a creative person creative and thus essential to the heartbeat of an advertising agency. It was the proverbial straw. So, in a fit of pique and with a small, really small, inheritance in my pocket, I said, “see ya!”

I was all gung-ho to get out of advertising, as I had been almost since I got into it. So, I tried to get a couple things going (Vintage Vagabond/SmartParty/Hellidays/) that I'll revisit at a later date. But, hey, nothing stuck. Or rather, I stuck with nothing. And so the misery began.....

Sunday, November 26, 2006

Yeah, Me and 35.9 Million Other People

What’s it like to free-fall from a place of relative prosperity to a state of perpetual anxiety, creditor harassment, limited employment, and abject humiliation? This, my friends, is the context and platform of Downward Nobility. While the shrapnel of my jagged existence threatens to slice my lifeline, I keep soldiering on, equally pessimistic and freakishly hopeful. Please share in my experiences. Commiserate, learn, laugh and think twice about looking down your nose at someone else, as I used to. Then again, I used to do a lot of things.