The 7-11 Domestic Disputes

            Lately at nights I've been stopping by my local 7-11 to pick up a nice cup of hot chocolate for a warm late-night snack, and its during these hours where the most odd people come out to also get something from 7-11. This particular convenience store is located near a highway exit as well as a subway station, so its certain to attract the best of the best, or actually the worst of the worst, society has to offer.

            The other night for example some guy who looked like a junkie was trying to make a purchase with a debit card, his wife's or girlfriend's apparently, but the pin number for the card wasn't going through. I'm waiting on line, and the 7-11 cashier had to try to charge the card behind the counter, but the worker still needed the pin code to make the charge go through. So the guy is on his cellphone hollering at some lady to just give him the number and it seems she couldn't remember what it was, so there was one failed transaction after another. The guy was getting more upset by the moment and started screaming at this point for the lady to give him the right number. I was growing impatient and felt my hot chocolate would turn into ice by the time this guy was done. The cashier had presence of mind to make the guy wait aside so I could get through my $1.62 transaction. I was finally out of there, the guy was still on the phone, and I have no idea if he was ever able to use the card.

            Fast foward to last night I walked into the 7-11 around midnight to get a nice cup of hot chocolate and there's two more beauties already in there. This time it was a couple, the man needed a cane to walk, and as soon as I walked in they were arguing with eachother. The guy must have asthma because he was holding one of those breathers near his mouth, the lady slapped it out of his hand and it fell onto the dirty floor. As I poured myself a medium hot chocolate the lady marched towards the back of the store saying she had enough and that it was over. I think the guy wanted her to buy him something because he seemed quite dissapointed and wanted to confirm with her if she wasn't going to get something for him. She also yelled out that she wanted all her money back, so maybe she's been giving him money and buying him stuff for quite some time. The guy limped towards the back of the store to try to get closer to her, but she moved by him and exited the store entirely. I finally went to the line and had my turn to make the purchase, by this time the guy also exited the store and the two of them continued the argument out in the parking lot. I left the store and watched them for a few seconds, but seeing there were no cars and no other witnesses on hand, it would've been awkward to just stand there and watch those two, so I headed home.

            7-11 seems to sell everything these days, maybe they should include free divorce proceeding with any soft drink purchase over $4...

Bad Economy is a Hoax

            Well...sort of. Put it this way, do you remember a time when someone said the economy is good? No, of course not. It's only done in revisionist mode; It was good during the Clinton years, the economy thrived after WWII, Obama got us back on track after the 2008 depression, etc. The fact is the economy is the economy, good experiences for some, bad experiences for others, but its all up to interpretation.

            Using the unemployment rate as a measuring stick offers no real insight. How many people are working 'off the books' yet declared themselves jobless? How many people were listed as unemployed found work by the time the results came out, and visa versa? Where are these statistics pulled from anyhow? Saying the economy is bad and drumming that same message over and over into the population is simply a tool to keep people afraid. "You better be good to your boss and work hard, or else you'll be homeless". "Well, you can leave at 5pm or 6pm as per what we're paying you, but if you can stay till 9pm or 10pm for free, guess who won't get laid off when the next round of cuts come?". More work!! Longer hours!! More stress!! This leads to profits flowing upwards as it originates from work being done outside what's covered in employees' salaries.

           For a chance of pace, let's say the government and the media put out a message that the economy was good and a reasonable amount of jobs were available. Would the workforce strive as hard to hold onto their current jobs and grind out extra profitable efforts? No way!! It makes so much more sense for the government and the business world(both of which dictate the media) to instill a mindframe that jobs are scarce and workers need to be in fear that if they don't work superhard, they'll be in major trouble. In fact, once the Nazi Germany system went into full effect, the middle class was depleted through several different means and the weekly work hour rate shot up from 40 to 60(sound familiar?). If that's not enough stress, the media also pushes these images of how celebrities and the ultra rich live their lifestyles, walking around in a $2,000 shirt and vacationing in the south of France every weekend.  If you're just some average joe with a $50,000 a year salary, how are you going to feel about your life? Depressing, yes? There's also ads and infommercials to keep pouring the negativity on; Build more muscle immediately, order these pills to have a better sex life, get this DVD to lose weight, buy this cream to get rid of the acne and wrinkles on your face. All this is designed to keep people on edge and in constant fear of something, even if they don't know what that something is.

            When it's asked why do Americans have the highest levels of heart disease, it's mainly because of these type of shananagans. I'm sure the triple-decker cheeseburgers and fried oreos don't help much either, but one can't ignore the negativity and stress put on people doesn't contribute to poor heart health as well. If it isn't heart disease, it's depression, or it's insomnia, or erectile dysfunction, whatever a visit to the doctor's office and a pill on a TV commerical can solve. If you want to ignore these messages being conveyed, you almost can't anymore. Thanks to the new generation of cell phones with the iPhones, touch screens, 4G, or whatever is going on now, these messages and images are being delivered to the individual from the time they wake up in the morning to the time they finally fall asleep at night. With TV and the internet at home, internet at the workplace, and now these new age phones, basically we're looking at a screen of negativity 18 out of the 24 hours of the day.

           People are put through a ringer - telling them the economy is bad, they're inadequite physically and financially, with the only salvation being working hard at their job for long hours, taking a list of pills, and the necessity to have the latest iPhone to keep those messages pumping to the public whereever they may go 24/7. It's a never ending cycle caused by a long string of hoaxes...