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I ordered groceries and once again it was a bit of a headache.

I had a budget of $250. That’s to buy groceries for the rest of the month (17 days) for 3 adults and 2 cats. (So that’s like $14 to live on per day.)

I ordered from Walmart and Safeway. Staples and such from Walmart, and taking advantage of the meat BOGO from Safeway.

The one thing I like about Walmart is that whatever the final bill is, that’s what I have to pay. I can pick out the substitutions and what-have-yous, then I agree to pay a set amount AND THAT’S IT. I know exactly what to expect because the amount I agree to is what gets paid.

Safeway though… Sigh.

Ordering from Safeway is very stressful. I agreed to pay $79.76, but got charged $91.04. That’s an $11.28 difference.

AND I’ve gotten VERY careful with making sure to set my substitutions or mark Do Not Substitute, as there was one time when they charged me $60 OVER what I agreed to because the grocery picker substituted like $50 meat and shrimp for what should have been a BOGO and $10 meat.

Every time I order from Safeway is a crapshoot. My budget is so tight, and it’s terrible that I can’t be sure whether I’m going to be forced over it. And like, they don’t allow changes or rejections, so once you order and the clock hits 11:59 p.m. on the day you order THAT’S IT.

So like, they pick out the groceries on delivery day, but you have no further say in anything. You can’t reject anything and if you call the Help Line the person will say they can’t do anything for you because the order is locked in.

All you can do is wait for the delivery guy to show up, then pick through the bags and find the items you want to reject.

As it is, I had to go back to my Walmart order and change the tip amount for the Walmart driver. I feel bad because George was a nice guy, but that $250 amount was a HARD limit. So while George still got a tip, it wasn’t what it would have been if Safeway was more upfront with their final amounts.

I agreed to $79. Why do I have to STRESS that they could charge me $10 or $20 or $60 or $100 more than what I agreed to? Why can’t they be completely transparent with their amounts?

It’s very frustrating.

And I know. Someone out there is like “If it matters so much, why don’t you go to the grocery store and shop for yourself???” Well, because whatever lies people tell themselves, we’re in the middle of a pandemic.

Me going to the store risks me being exposed to sickness, and if I’m sick, risks me exposing other people to sickness.

And also, me ordering from the store keeps the store people employed, and also provides jobs to the delivery people. I mean, Safeway uses their own trucks and employees to make home deliveries, but they get tips now so that’s extra money for the drivers and their families. Walmart outsources their deliveries, so that’s people that otherwise wouldn’t have a job being able to buy groceries and pay rent for themselves.

Me and my family need to eat. And I only have a finite amount of money to buy EVERYTHING for a whole month.

$500 for groceries and essentials for 3 adults and 2 cats for a WHOLE MONTH.

That’s food, toilet paper, paper towels, laundry soap, coffee, coffee filters, cat food, cat litter, bird seed, dish soap, shampoo, conditioner… EVERYTHING for an ENTIRE MONTH.

And this time I didn’t have enough to buy cat litter and I’m really regretting it because I’m going to have to figure something out as Lemon’s medication is making her pee an excessive amount.

Life is hard enough. Why can’t Safeway be more reasonable? It makes it so even when they have good deals, I don’t want to order from them because they could substitute for something ridiculous and end up with an overcharge. Boo.

~Harper Kingsley

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P.S. A few weeks ago I got offered a discount W+ offer and I took advantage of it. $70 for a year seems reasonable to me, as ordering from the store costs $7.95 for a delivery fee, and I was ordering twice a month. So within 4-8 months, the W+ membership will pay for itself. Reasonable.

I am a little bitter that when I was given the offer for a year membership at $50 I didn’t have money at the time, but c’est la vie.

Being poor costs more money on the whole than being rich. It’s having to pay-as-you-go rather than being able to buy in bulk or sign up for money saving memberships. It’s not having the spare cash when you need it, so you end up going into debt for essentials, then having less money overall as you have to pay off debts you never should have had in the first place.

A universal basic income, people. It would help the economy. (They spend MORE money oppressing homeless people than they would spend housing the unhoused. Like, those cops getting overtime pay for trashing “homeless shanty towns”… like, it would have been more cost effective for cities to provide housing and essentials for the people rather than lining the pockets of oppressors. It’s RIDICULOUS.)

Missouri House Republicans voted to defund all the Missouri public libraries. And now the bill is moving to the state senate, which is also controlled by Republicans.

So basically Missouri is like “Fuck them kids! Fuck them poor people! Fuck everyone that uses the services of the public library system!”

Missouri public schools rank 49th in funding they receive from the state. They are ranked 26th in the nation.

And I know, some people without much life experience are like “But why would they do that? There’s no reason for that!” And it’s like, dude.

If you can’t learn certain subjects or read certain books in school, and now you can’t learn anything on your own at the public library… How are you supposed to learn ANYTHING outside of the bubble of your Christo-Fascists parents’ control? And if they’re home schooling you… My dude: You’re not going to pass the state tests and you’re not going to be able to go to college.

They are trapping kids in their “utopia”-vision which likely includes marrying their young children to old people for money. Like, religious prostitution.

It’s very sad and tragic and there’s going to be a lot of misery and death in the next 5-30 years.

Teenagers are going to become adults in a world they are unable to understand and they’re going to be ANGRY at the abuse they suffered at the hands of their parents. There’s going to be an adaptation period, and then those kids are going to be grown ups voting and sharing their opinions to the public at large and its going to be a big mess.

Like, there’s dudes today that are teaching younger men that sperm actually changes the DNA of women’s bodies. That if you have sex with a woman that’s already had previous unprotected sex… the baby that’s born won’t be your child, but the child of the man that “got there first.”

They’re trying to say loony stuff like having sex with a man will affect a woman’s point of view and interests. That if she has sex with a man that believes in aliens, she’s going to believe in aliens. That she will only be interested in reading if she has sex with a reader

There are some dudes that are really spreading the nonsense belief that sperm is MAGIC (hand wave, hand wave, spirit fingers).

There are stupid dudes that actually believe that their having sex with a woman will completely change her personality and way of life because MAGIC SPERM. They are THAT desperate to believe that they’re some kind of special.

And I blame homeschooling.

I blame people that never should have been allowed to homeschool their children raising adults that believe they’re the be-all end-all of human perfection. “All that misbehavior isn’t due to emotional imbalance but to the rightful expression of a wonderful star child!”

And then when those dudes are unable to find romantic partners because they’re NOT wonderful, they’re just weird and rude and unpleasant to be around… They get out their guns and start mowing down roomfuls of strangers. Because they are incapable of dealing with their own human emotions, and they were not taught to recognize that anger is an emotion.

They lack proper coping mechanisms. So rather than dealing with things like normal people do… They throw temper tantrums and vote to defund public libraries because “O noes, if libraries exist my children are going to read books and realize that I’m an abusive fuck that’s systemically destroying their every chance to succeed in life! They’re going to realize that ours is NOT the way the majority of people live but in fact the result of being raised within a cult and that their lives could have been so much better except I’m an asshole that did my best to help ruin infrastructure and destroy the public education system. We have to DESTROY the libraries both in and out of school! Down with education! Let criminal ignorance reign supreme!”

It’s sad and it’s pathetic and it’s a shame. And it’s scary because those weirdos are out there right now, breeding their “master race” of future mass murderers.

Oh, and we’re still in the middle of a plague that has killed MILLIONS of people and disabled many more. And there’s about to be another surge, that some doctors fear will be worse than previous surges. And they’ve stopped masking in doctors’ offices where people go when they’re sick.

And I just found out that n95 masks aren’t as effective as I thought they were, that if you’re in a room saturated with virus, 5% of that dirty air is making it through your n95 mask. So an n95 mask is only completely effective if THE SICK PERSON is wearing an n95 mask too so all their dirty breath is trapped against their own face.

And all those sick people are walking around, maskless and breathing hard. Because science isn’t real or whatever magic thinking they’ve embraced.

Man. I hope they offer the next round of free booster shots soon. I want to get a shot and give it a chance to start working before I get exposed to a virus that can kill or permanently disable me.

Anyways. I hope everyone out there is doing all right. I hope everyone is staying safe and practicing safe practices. And I feel sad for people in Missouri that will be completely without access to good books to read, because only the rich can afford to buy hundreds of books a month.

As a lifelong reader: I am sorry for all the people that won’t be able to satisfy their desire to read.

Because while children will still be able to check out books from their school library during the school year… adults will be left completely without access. And that’s so sad.

I wish people weren’t so evil.

(WARNING: Contains spoilers for the movie Train to Busan.)

I didn’t really enjoy the sequel, but seen as a standalone story, "Train to Busan" was a great zombie movie. To the point that if I was trying to explain that there were real life zombies running around I would say something like "It’s ‘Train to Busan,’ run!"

A father so wrapped up in his "very important" job that he barely has a connection to his young daughter who desperately wants to be with her mother in Busan. A son that relies on his aging mother to provide all the love and care that he should to his young daughter while ignoring her pleas to see his daughter and love her for himself. A formless mother figure and ex-wife that he in some way resents for having the daughter’s love that he himself refuses to cherish.

At its core, "Train to Busan" is not just a story of survival, but a story of love. Of realizing what is actually important before it is too late.

In his last moments of humanity, his dearest memories are of his daughter’s birth and the joy she brought him. He died with the hope that he had saved her. That he had done all that he could to give her a chance to survive in a suddenly hostile world.

It’s like growing up. There came a point in time where he no longer had the capacity to guide her steps and was forced to open his hand and let go. To hope that she would swim rather than sink, that she would live and flourish rather than become a monster like him.

And I think that’s why I didn’t enjoy the sequel as much as I hoped to. It lacked the heart and humanity of "Train to Busan." A zombie movie that really wasn’t about zombies, but the human condition, and what humans are willing and ready to do when it’s about survival rather than simply getting ahead. When all the extras and the luxuries are stripped away, and the only choice is live or die.

~Harper Kingsley

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Someone brought out that picture of the plate with the badly cooked steak and the three-yolked fried eggs with the butter slathered over everything and… Yeah.

The original poster had something like “This is what THEY want to take away from you.” And the poster is some kind of “health” person exercise-bro. You know, the type of dude that has so many muscles he can no longer touch the top of his own head.

And it’s like, “Nobody’s trying to take that away from you. You are perfectly free to load up on protein and fat and sugar and caffeine and salt and… You can eat whatever you want! Nobody gives a fuck. If you want to eat stuff that’s not recognized as being food… you can even legally get it as long as it’s packaged as a supplement.”

For reals: The food and drug association doesn’t control what’s labeled as a supplement. People pack that shit in their garages using a funnel and a scoop and you can get anywhere from 100% the daily value to 7000% to 0% with all the fillers and what-alls they add. Like, there’s a dude that’s right now facing criminal charges for making a “supplement” that contained FECES from his nephew that he was selling as a cure for autism. Like, ableist people fed literal human shit to their children at like $1700 a pop.

So yeah. Want to eat steak everyday? If you can afford it, do it.

Want to eat a dozen eggs and have super hard poops? Go ahead.

Want to eat a whole stick of butter at every meal? Sounds super gross, but knock yourself dead. Literally maybe.

Nobody gives a fuck.

Eat what you want to eat.

And yeah, while you have the freedom to eat whatever you want to eat, other people have the freedom to judge your diet and your lifestyle. Welcome to humanity.

It’s the same with the “zOMG they want to take away our gas stoves!” drama all those dudes were diving into.

Someone said “Hey, even when they’re not in use, gas stoves are releasing a dangerous amount of toxic gas into your home” and those guys were like “They want to take our stoves!”

No, bruh, they want you to understand that your gas stove is releasing a dangerous amount of toxic gas into your home. You have the choice to switch to an electric stove and maybe stop your little kid from having a learning disability or something or save you and your family from developing cancer in the not-too-distant future.

Your life, your choice.

It’s the same with all the actors and what-nots suddenly taking up cigarette smoking. I personally think it’s the dumbest trend ever and that they’re all going to regret it when their skin starts aging like soured milk and their organs start failing and they realize that their quality of life has been severely curtailed… but whatever. They’re grown up making grown up choices.

It’s sad that a lot of them are so young and lack the life experience to realize they’re screwing themselves up, but there’s nothing I can do about it.

I lived through the days when you could walk into a restaurant and be asked “Smoking or non-smoking” and the only difference was that they’d take the ash tray off the table. I lived through the days of anti-smoking campaigns that featured people talking through a hole in their neck with their faces wasted away to almost nothing and those pictures of blackened lungs that looked more like pieces of steak left too long on a grill and burnt to shit. I lived through all that.

I have never been a cigarette smoker and never will be. They taste gross. Maybe that scent when someone first lights one is somehow enticing, but after that they smell disgusting. That stench permeates your clothes, your hair, your SKIN just by walking past someone smoking a cigarette. It’s very unpleasant and I’ve never had a desire to get involved.

“But that’s addiction! They can’t help themselves!” Yeah, and I have total sympathy for people of the older generation that started smoking when they were like 13-years old and didn’t know that smoking was bad. People from a time without seatbelts and child car seats weren’t even a concept of the future. People that were told by doctors that smoking cigarettes could help their asthma.

Those people get all my sympathy, because they were sucked in by the lies of big corporations and they were already addicted by the time the truth came out.

But people born in modern times? Pshaw. You know that shit’s poison and you chose to start using it because you somehow think it makes you look cool.

And okay. Your life, your choice. It’s sad that you’re going to die younger than you otherwise would have. It’s sad that your looks are going to fade faster than they otherwise would have. It’s sad that you have chosen to lower your quality and length of life to fit into a fad.

Eat your terribly cooked steak and burnt eggs, bruh. Nobody gives a fuck but you.

You think that people are going to tell you that you shouldn’t eat that shit because you know that that shit is unhealthy. Your internal turmoil is not my problem.

Light your cigarette with the flame from your gas stove as you ash into your terrible looking eggs as you get ready to saw into your burnt to shit steak.

Your drama is your drama. Your cholesterol is your cholesterol. You could die tomorrow and only the people that know you will care. That’s called life.

Nobody’s forcing you to eat bug protein. Nobody’s forcing you to eat Greek yogurt. Nobody’s forcing you to eat a salad or cut your hair or dance when you don’t want to.

We are all getting tired of the way you try to force your life choices on the rest of us though. The way you use your lifestyle choices to grift with children as your target demographic.

“You’re not a REAL man if you don’t eat a diet of steak, eggs, potatoes, and protein powder. BUY MY VITAMINS AND SUPPLEMENTS!”

“You’re a PUSSY if you don’t have a gas stove and use sandpaper for toilet paper. MAN UP!”

And I get it. Kids are looking for role models, and the word on the street is that “parents just don’t understand.” And there’s the Internet and the algorithm ready to introduce the fresh faced youth to the kind of psyche damaging nonsense that lets you buy a big house and a fancy car before you’re 35.

I get it. You want money and prestige and power and… Yeah. You sell evil to line your pockets. I get it. We all get it.

And it upsets you that the bulk of people don’t want it. That people are beginning to understand that your “healthy lifestyle brand” sells an unhealthy lifestyle that results in colon cancer and heart failure. That your need to live beyond your means and flash cash has resulted in you spending more than you make and that if you don’t continue to bring in the money… you’re going to have to sell your house and car and declare bankruptcy because at the end of the day you have nothing and are nothing.

You’re a burnt steak and three sad looking eggs slathered in butter on a plate.

I like a good steak. Which is one that’s not dripping in oil with a pat of butter plopped on top like a silly hat. I like salad and cherry tomatoes. I like sunshine and butterflies and bumbly bumblebees. I like breathing clean air and drinking water that doesn’t taste like chlorine and sadness because YOUR life choices have resulted in a dying planet.

We live on a rock hurtling through space, alone and lonely with no friendly neighbors in sight, yet through some twist of fate this rock managed to gain an oxygen layer and develop vegetation and animal life.

We live within a delicate balance that with all our science and high ideals we still don’t completely understand. We need the bacteria that make up our biomes. We need the insects that pollinate the flowers that create the seeds of the trees and vegetation that give us fruit and vegetables and oxygen.

We need the wolves and the beavers and the birds and the bats and the mosquitoes we hate but that do so much to make the world we live in.

We need so much that we don’t understand or appreciate. And we destroy so many things that we don’t realize we’re going to miss when the world we need begins to die.

And all those nihilists that wah-wah about how nothing matters because the Earth is nothing but a rock hurtling through space and all current life is meaningless… They’re right.

The human race could wipe out itself and all other life on the planet, and it won’t mean a thing to the Earth itself. Because the Earth is a rock hurtling through space, and even if we managed to BLOW IT UP… those pieces would be sucked into the gravity of another planetary body and add mass to somewhere else while the largest chunks that remain of this Earth would gather more bits of rock out there and in time a new planet would develop.

But the LIFE that the Earth was blessed with would be over and gone. Because the chances of a viable environment developing and life growing from it was so infintesimal that it really could be seen as miraculous. A true wonder of the universe.

So dude: Eat your badly cooked steak and your sad looking eggs and SHUT THE FUCK UP. Nobody cares.

We all have real things to worry about. And in the grand scheme of everything happening? You’re a bit of cosmic nothing.

Gobble down your sticks of butter and cry about it.

Pax.

~Harper Kingsley

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• The story site: https://kimichee.com. Just stories, poems, and reviews, no excess babble.

• The blog: https://www.harperkingsley.net/blog. The stories, the meta, the babble, the news; a broad spread of content.

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