Sure Hope the Hobos Don't Steal the Laundry From the Line

Yahmdallah links to an amusing Village Voice article on surviving the coming Depression. Some other article I was reading while surfing (this is like how the Desert Fathers would write "Somewhere in St. Paul's letters it says..." when they couldn't remember the link either) mentioned that homeschoolers might fare well, as they could sell their mortgage-laden houses and buy where the schools are lousy and the property concomitantly cheap. We'll see if it comes to that, but it's true, there's a certain advantage to the portability of homeschooling in this kind of economy: we can pick up and go anytime, anywhere, should Eudoxus' employment require it. (Not to mention that, unless the State goes out of business or he stabs the dean, we're in tenured security.)

Nevertheless, like everyone else, the Opinionated Household is looking for ways to lower the bills. I cracked out the clothesline at last and hung out some wash, rediscovering that solar-powered laundry drying is not just cheaper, but fast and easy in Texas weather pretty much year-round. I did have to get some more clothespins, and, assuming that the MegaloMart H.E.B. would have them, searched fruitlessly for a while before appealing to two lounging teens with employee badges for assistance. They moseyed over to the laundry aisle, and one rummaged around haplessly, then offered me a box of safety pins, asking "Is this what you're looking for?" I observed that those were not clothespins. "You know, I don't even know what those are that you're talking about." Feeling a hundred years old, I explained that some people dried their laundry by hanging it up on lines, by means of clothespins. "Oh! You mean those wooden things? I think I know what you mean. You know, I've never seen that done before." The other teenager then mentioned that they carried no such thing at H.E.B., but that oddly, several other people had asked for them in the last few days. Funny.