Going Like Sixty

Sale Tax Holidays at Whole Foods gives me Earworm

Posted: 07 Aug 2010 03:00 PM PDT

Tax Holidays

A bunch of states are giving shoppers a “tax holiday.” States that can’t meet their budgets and are cutting essential services have decided it’s smart to give up a revenue stream for a weekend. The rationale is that this is “back-to-school” time and stores are stuffed with shoppers.

Harriet puts this into perspective

The National Retail Federation says that a U.S. family, on average, is expected to shell out $606.40 on clothes, shoes, supplies and electronics this year, up from $548.72 last year…

At best, 9% sales tax (Tennessee) would save $54. I’ll bet you dollars to donuts (yum, donuts) any Mom dragging along kids to shop for school spent that much on junk food today.

Tax holidays are stupid.

Whole Foods

Last weekend was the first weekend all summer I didn’t kayak. You decide the reason:

Nancy had hand surgery
It stormed all weekend

At any rate, I hung around the house and watched her drug induced slumber. This weekend she is out of drugs. I told her we were doing something this weekend: whatever she wanted – with or without dogs.

She decided she wanted to go to the grocery. Whole Foods.

We don’t have a Whole Foods in Smallburg, we had to drive to Nashvegas. Why? Because her friends say “it’s the best grocery store you will ever see.”

That’s kind of like “it’s the best root canal you will ever have.”

The place was full of organic, tofu, locally grown, gluten-free, overpriced yuppies. Dayam. Stuff was expensive! But people were filling their hemp cloth bags like the holocaust was upon us.

Had a lot of good samples, better than Sam’s Club. We bought five bananas and a bottle of extra virgin olive oil. And, we bought a baguette of bread and some artichoke and Parmesan cheese to eat on the way home.

Earworms

Last night Orchestra Smallburg had a ’70s music concert sponsored by Chuck and Mary Barris. Yeah, THAT Chuck Barris! Smallburg has a lot of great local talent: they raid the church choirs and university. If ever there was an opportunity for me to have an earworm, last night was it. Didn’t happen. I miss having earworms after a concert!

Grandad, an Irish fellow, calls it a “snatch”. If he knew the 70s American definition of “snatch” he would be more careful about wiping it. He has a method of wiping a snatch.

I keep my haunting little piece to hand now. If ever I am troubled by any repetitive snatch, I play my wee sound track. It never fails. It erases both the irritating piece, and also itself. I am left with a clear, unmelodic head.

Larry indulges his earworms, nay embraces them!

If you know me, you can probably guess the rest. I wound up with an earworm. And so did my friend. We spent a lot of the rest of the day asking one another to stop whistling.

He compiled a post based on his ear worm, complete with narrative and links.

I decided last night about 6/8 of the way through the concert and after surveying the crowd at halftime, the Orchestra Smallburg maestro must be very frustrated.

First, he is no slouch at waving his stick at musicians. He has conducted the St. Petersburg (Russia) State Symphony (and other guest stints) and his leadership of the finale of the Charleston Piccolo Spoleto got a rave:

"the very best Piccolo Spoleto Finale in the history of the festival."

But the dude has to realize, 7/10 of the audience isn’t hearing all the notes because of hearing loss from medication or listening to 70′s music cranked up on the eight-track.

That is all, you may now resume your normal activities.