Wal-Mart Tomatoes?

Every morning I walk two miles. We live about 1/10 of a mile from the main road so I walk back and forth ten times which adds up to two miles. While I am walking my mind wanders down some strange paths and I think about all kinds of things.

This morning I thought about:

1. Who keeps track of all the taxes we pay and why can't we audit them and make them show us where the money goes?
   
2. Why do I continue to pay such high prices for health insurance (which increases often) when my benefits keep going down? I started off paying a $20 co-pay at the doctor's office, now I pay $30! (a 50% increase)
   
3. I also thought about all that I have to do today: Typeset newsletter; Wash clothes; Wash dishes; Light dusting; Take out the trash; Sort through old clothes and decide what to do with the ones that are outgrown.
   

Then my mind settled on the inevitable question in our house, "Mama, what's for dinner?" Tonight I'm fixing pork chops (barbeque because Steve is sick of regular pork chops), dry beans and turnip greens.

This line of thinking got me started on Wal-Mart tomatoes. I hate Wal-Mart tomatoes. I know, how could anyone hate Wal-Mart tomatoes? I mean they are so red and pretty. What could possibly be the problem?

The problem is they taste terrible. We sacrifice taste and quality for a pretty product. So I don’t buy my tomatoes from Wal-Mart anymore. Instead I started going to the local grocer for my tomatoes. Since I was already there I went ahead and bought all of my produce for the coming week. I was surprised (although I don’t know why) with how much better everything tasted.

So if local tomatoes are better than the ones that are shipped before they are even ripe what else I am sacrificing for a low price? I discovered that meat from the local grocer was better quality as well.

I’ve been shopping for my groceries at Wal-Mart for the past several years. Who can pass up the great deals and what difference does it make if we sacrifice a little quality? Nobody’s really going to miss it that much are they?

I quit buying my meat from Wal-Mart when I opened my third tray of chicken that was rotten and I mean rotten. When I called to ask if I needed to bring the chicken back to get my money, I was told by the man in the meat department to just bring the receipt. When I got to the service desk the lady said I had to bring the meat as well. I live about 15 miles out of town so this aggravated me a little (yeah, a little). She called the meat department and the man I had spoken with earlier told her to give me my money and let it go. She did but she told me next time that I would have to bring the rotten meat with me. Then she told me in a conspiratorially low voice not to buy Wal-Mart chicken.

I haven’t had any problems taking rotten meat back to Wal-Mart since then; because I no longer buy meat there.

Do you think the president eats Wal-Mart groceries? I very seriously doubt it!

February 21, 2006

Good morning world! How are you today?
Did you watch the news this morning? Depressing isn't it? I usually try to avoid the news but with all the church fires here in Alabama I find myself listening a little more. I actually started watching the news regularly when Natalie Holloway disappeared in Aruba last summer but I had almost stopped when the church fires started and now I need my daily dose again.

I guess it's important to keep up with current events but I don't always like the way they are presented by our media. I was taught in grade school that the media was a biased medium in which a person (the reporter or writer) presented his own view and left you to decide what you believe. Now I am told (by a government school grammar book) that the media is an unbiased medium in which all facts are presented equally, but this simply is not true. Nobody presents anything in an unbiased opinion. I don't believe we're even capable of that. Rather the media presents all things with a very biased opinion and tries to pass it off as non-biased.

As I write this it is very biased as to the way that I feel about the media. Your opinion is just as worthy as mine but I'm not writing yours am I. So I present a biased opinion.

It also distresses me that after the sensationalism of a story wears off it disappears, possibly never to be heard about again. If the story has a satisfactory conclusion it may make an appearance again later, but many times the suspects are reported along with mug shots and then we never hear about these people again. Were they guilty or innocent?

The media works on the premise that if you mention it heavily for weeks and then let it go away, people will forget. We get this with politicians all the time.

- steps off her soapbox for now. I'll try to pick a lighter subject next time. Thanks for reading!