#food production. food-price inflation
Text
Food For Thought
Only a few weeks ago we were reading headlines like these:
“Why are UK supermarkets facing fresh food shortages?” (Guardian: 22/02/23)
“Tesco has followed Aldi, Asda and Morrisons in introducing customer limits on certain fresh fruit and vegetables as shelves are stripped bare at supermarkets across the UK.” (Mirror: 22/02/23)
And more recently we have this
”Supermarket shelves face more fruit and veg shortages" (Retail Gazette: 02/05/23)
What is our government doing to help alleviate this problem? Absolutely nothing! Rishi Sunak is always telling us that our priorities are his priorities but his government has ABANDONED the horticultural sector of our economy, and with it the guaranteed supply of fruit, vegetables and salad.
Last June the government promised to come up with a strategy to help British fruit and vegetable growers with "sky-high" input costs and labour shortages, which were pricing home growers out of the market. This week, the government went back on its word leading to the “Farmers Weekly" leading with this headline:
“Ditching of English horticulture strategy ‘beggars belief’ (Farmers Weekly: 03/05/23)
What this means for the hard-pressed British consumer, as home grown fruit and vegetable production falls, is higher prices and the increased likelihood of fruit and vegetable shortages as we become more reliant upon overseas suppliers.
Common sense tells us that food security should be one of the top priorities of any government, yet Sunak’s government is so intent on controlling migrants that they wont allow enough seasonal workers into Britain to harvest our fruit and vegetable crops. Nor will they adequately compensate for the additional costs in energy, preferring instead to give tax breaks to their wealthy friends. Consequently, many growers are simply giving up their businesses, thereby making the UK more reliant upon foreign imports.
We saw what happened when rising energy costs and bad weather affected the production of European fruit, vegetables and salad products during the winter months. Unlike Sunak’s government, European governments put their citizens first, so when there were shortages over the winter, supplies stayed in the EU prompting headlines like this:
“Europeans mock UK shoppers with photos of supermarket shelves full of fresh fruit and veg." (Mirror: 22/02/23)
Not only can we expect more headlines like that if we don’t secure our own home-grown food supplies but we can can also expect the food-price inflation to continue to rise.
31 notes
·
View notes
Quote
The ingredients of pet foods include meat, grains and micronutrients - all of which have become more expensive in recent months. It's a global problem. The cost of pet food is up by 10.3% in the US, 8.8% in the European Union, and 8.4% in the UK. Helping to drive up food prices is the soaring cost of energy used in their production, says Prof William Chen from Singapore's Nanyang Technological University. "The uncertainties on food production remain as a result of climate change, the Covid-19 pandemic and geopolitical tensions. Together with the perception that pet food may be seen as less critical as compared with consumer food, prices for pet food may not fall any time soon."
‘Cost of living: Why more Australians are giving up their pets‘, BBC
#BBC#Cost of living#European Union#UK#US#pet food price inflation#energy costs#Nanyang Technological University#William Chen#food production#climate change#Covid-19#geopolitical tensions
2 notes
·
View notes
Text
Hey so remember how grocery prices suddenly jackknifed during lockdown and never went back down?
Well turns out the companies would have done that shit either way and had been steadily price-fixing for the last decade!
Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson just announced more than $40 million in court-ordained Fuck You money from massive swaths of food production companies are to be paid out to households earning at or below 175% of the federal poverty level ($25.5k for 1 person, $34.5k for 2 people households) before Dec 31st of this year. Happy Holidays.
youtube
"The bottom line here is that my legal team took on two large corporate price-fixing conspiracies that increased the cost for groceries for Washington families. We've prevailed, and as a result, we are sending checks to over 400,000 Washington households."
Cannot stress enough the extent of the conspiracies he's talking about here. 15 out of the total 19 chicken producers got nailed in this lawsuit. Not the total number of conspirators, mind, just the ones who left enough evidence for the AG to kick their ass in so expedient a manner. Make no mistake, all 19 were in on it. The court case against the rest of them has been delayed until October of next year, though. None of them are making it out unscathed.
Tuna didn't escape antitrust horseshit either, because the CEOs of Starkist, Chicken of the Sea, and Bumblebee Tuna had a fucking group chat where they complained that the price of tuna was "too low" and they agreed to artificially inflate the price.
“What’s so maddening about the conduct of these companies is the reason that they engaged in this price-fixing conspiracy was greed. They wanted to make money."
So anyway the AG who nailed their asses to the wall and continues to do so is running for governor. If you live in Washington, could be worth your vote when primary season rolls around.
#news#uspol#monopolies#so hey i guess the world isn't complete bullshit even if the settlement money really shoulda been higher#cause deep down you know they only settled because they knew the money was barely going to be a slap on the wrist#Youtube
22K notes
·
View notes
Text
Randland World Leaders - Do they know the price of a banana apple?
Morgase Trakand - No, but she could get it in the right neighborhood if asked. Understands the economic influences that affect prices and knows roughly where Andor's sit at any given time.
Elayne Trakand - Pre world travels? Not with a gun to her head. She wouldn't give a false guess though, just avoid the question rather then admit ignorance. Post world travels she knows the prices of most common food stuffs for Andor and all of it's immediate neighbors with scary accuracy.
Rand al'Thor - Yes. One of the first things Rand does after taking over Tear is familiarize himself with tax policies and food production and grain trade. He is a farm boy at heart and has Powerful Opinions on cost of living.
Perrin Abyara - Nope. He thinks he does, but in reality he names the price of apples he paid aka, pre adventure. He knows that prices in general have gone up but if you tried to sell him an apple he would get offended when you wouldn't take the same price he paid prior to half a dozen kingdoms going to war, and the endless summer choking out trade. He wouldn't say anything though and just assume you where trying to squeeze a few coins out of him because he's dressed like some 'idiot lord'.
Faile- Yes. She knows exactly the price of apples grown in the Two Rivers and knows that it's out competing the neighboring provinces apples by a good margin. Does this have something to do with her threatening local officials to ensure they don't try to hard to compete with Two Rivers food prices? Maybe, but it's nothing Perrin can prove she did. HE dosen't know the price of apples.
Siuan Sanche - Apples? No. Fish? Yes. Siuan could tell you the price of every fish in the market at Tar Valon and what will be cheaper next month based on yields out of the south. This is not for economic reasons, it's because she still eats fish for 3 meals out of 4.
Berelain - Nope. She has economic advisers who she pays to know that. Her skill and perk points all went into Foreign Policy and Espionage, not Economics.
Alliandre - The price of apples keeps Alliandre up at night staring at her bedroom ceiling, fearing for her life. It turns out having a religious tyrant running rampart around your kingdom burning down farms and causing skyrocketing inflation by assaulting trade routes and exacting inconsistent 'tithes' on merchants will make you VERY familiar with the economic conditions of the common man. Every time the price of apples goes up a silver mark, Alliandre makes her food taster check her meals an extra time.
Tuon - Yes. Always good to know the price of local cyanide containing fruits, just in case.
Elaida - "It's an apple Alviarin? How much can it cost? 10 gold marks?"
#WoT#Wheel of time#WoT Shitposting hour#WoT Book Spoilers#morgase trakand#elayne trakand#rand al'thor#perrin aybara#faile bashere#siuan sanche#Berelain sur Paendrag Paeron#Alliandre Maritha Kigarin#tuon athaem kore paendrag#elaida do avriny a'roihan#feel free to add more if you have them
289 notes
·
View notes
Text
So, Kellogg's Boycott. Again.
Haven't seen any posts about it here yet, so figured I'd make one.
In short: We're all tired of these big companies gouging their prices just because they can, and calling it 'inflation.' We're tired of companies announcing record profits while they cut bonuses/lay people off/force workers to run on skeleton crews/etc. We're tired of "Shrinkflation" And we're tired of a bunch of other shit too, but you get my point.
So, vote with your wallet.
On April 1st, stop buying Kellogg's, and keep that up until June 30th. Just three months- just one quarter of the fiscal year. Companies report earnings each quarter, and if their earnings drop it will reflect in these quarterly reports.
Why Kellogg's?
Because their CEO recently pulled a "Let them eat cake."
TLDR; Kellogg's has raised prices by 28% across the board, bragged about record breaking profits, and then suggested that families struggling to afford groceries, because of aforementioned price gouging, just "eat cereal for dinner!"
And well, that message was not well received by anyone, as one could imagine. Pissed a lot of people off.
So yeah. The plan is to stop buying any Kellogg's products (below) for the entirety of the second quarter (April 1st-June 30th) and to collectively tell Kellogg to fuck off until they lower their prices.
The goal isn't to "destroy the company" or cost anyone their jobs- but we will hit them where they will listen. Their profits.
If they don't listen, then we don't come back, and we start in on the next company, and keep going until they all get the message.
There's always alternatives (more on that below) and we don't need them. If they refuse to drop their prices, then we just stick with the alternatives we found.
Three months is a minor inconvenience to teach a corporation a lesson, and we can do it.
So, take this month before April to find your alternatives. If you need help, I based a non-comprehensive list (below) off the image above. There's tons more just a google search away, and I bet others have made lists as well.
There's also always the option to make your own. There's tons of recipes online showing how to make dupes of your favorite products.
Some things to note:
Don't go stocking up on your favorite Kellogg's products the last week of March and think you're not crossing the picket line. The point is to make Kellogg's feel the loss in profits, and stocking up on Cheez-its beforehand will defeat the purpose. I sincerely promise you can make it three months without buying Kellogg's. Again, three months is a minor inconvenience to teach a corporation a lesson, and we can do it.
That said, Safe Foods are acknowledged. If you or your child is neurodivergent and has issues with food (i.e: literally won't be won't be able to eat at all without their safe food) you get a pass. By all means feel free to try and find alternatives, but it's very unlikely that the few who can't boycott will cause it to fail. There should be plenty of the rest of us to pick up the slack.
Don't be a bystander- meaning don't go about this thinking "Oh, well surely there's enough people boycotting that it's fine if I just-" No. If we ever want things to change then we need to be strong enough to do even something as small as not buying something we like for three months. Furthermore, it's on those of us who can afford Kellogg's products to boycott Kellogg's. It's not the responsibility of those who already can't afford Eggos to boycott Eggos. Nothing will change if you go about just assuming everyone else already has it handled for you. Take a stand.
And importantly, Spread the word. This only works if we let as many people as possible know about it.
So reblog this post, or make your own post, or both. Even feel free to copy and paste this entire post off-platform if you need to. I've also seen some suggest making flyers, or even just writing on post-it notes, and sticking them to Kellogg's products in the store to spread the word off-line.
Just get the word out there. If we ever want these companies to stop gouging us for every cent we've earned, then we have to make a stand somewhere.
If we do nothing it will only ever get worse.
#kelloggs boycott 2024#kelloggs#kelloggs boycott#corporate greed#boycott#eat the rich#ceo#let them eat cake#let them eat flakes#“Fuck you. Fools” day#fuck corporations#fuck capitalism#wendys#shrinkflation#price gouging#kelloggs ceo
140 notes
·
View notes
Text
ALEXITHYMIA CH 5: detergent, thrifting, and cake
Roommate AU: Carmy Berzatto x Reader
Chapter Rating: T (11k)
ao3 link, ch 1, ch 2, ch 3, ch 4
Chapter Summary: It’s his roommate’s birthday this week, and Carmy doesn’t find out until it’s a couple days away. Once he finds they’re unluckily spending their birthday alone, he makes it his mission to make their lonely day better. It’s the least he can do. Little does he know how much more he has to discover about them and about himself.
Tags: reader having trauma, carmy having trauma, toxic families, domesticity
A/N: It’s time… it’s time. I said last chapter was the longest…just kidding. THIS ONE is the longest, and it was hardest to write so far. The duo gets to have a lot of fun this chapter, though! arguably the most so far! A lot of domestic goodness and good food and shopping! Until… :)
also HUGE shoutout to @justaconsequence on tumblr for being my beta reader for this chapter! she was so kind and so helpful. this behemoth of a fic is too much for me to proofread on my own. anyway, thanks for reading and enjoy! can't wait to hear what y'all think!
Typically, by this time on Monday morning, Carmy's usually three cigarettes deep into paperwork, urgently (and poorly) calculating the sales the restaurant needs to make this week to stay afloat. Because even though it's a Sunday closing activity, he never seems to find the occasion to get around to it, and by 10 pm, he doesn't have the capacity to be crunching numbers.
Not that 8 am is much better. At least he's not dissecting the debt this morning—he's studying detergent prices.
“Why is this one, like, almost 20 dollars?” Carmy stops reading the price tags and glances over at his roommate, who's squinting at products on upper shelves. The lights are always too bright in this place. “And for such a small bottle…”
“Pre-mixed organic sulfate-free 100% vegan bleach,” Carmy reads dully.
“So stupid.” They shake their head. “Does grocery shopping ever depress you?”
“Usually,” he replies dryly. “Inflation is pretty depressing.”
“Don’t even get me started. Capitalism in general depresses me.”
“Hm, yeah. That too.” He sighs through his nose and tries to refocus. He's having a hard time processing all the numbers and letters today. “You see any unscented detergent? Somethin’ mild?”
“Um…” They crane their neck up and down, and then they crouch on the ground. They pick up a white bottle. “How's this? It's like, 8 dollars. It's not name-brand, but…”
“You know I don't care.” He kneels with them, huddling in close. They smell faintly of a sweet, yet musky perfume. He reminds himself to focus on the detergent, not the way they smell (even if it's far more interesting). “Yeah, this looks good. Thank you.”
“For your vintage denim, right?” They stand up to put the detergent in their shopping cart, which is barely separated with his stuff vs. theirs. He doesn't understand why his face grows warm at their comment, but it does.
“Uh, yeah. It is.” If the blush shows on his face, they graciously don't comment. “Although I'll admit I don't get around to washing them as much as I should.”
“You're not supposed to wash jeans that often anyway, right?” They lean their elbows onto the rickety cart as they push it, and he ambles along next to them, matching the slow, relaxed pace of their walk.
“Yeah, but I really…” The implications are clear. They fail in suppressing a laugh, and it makes him smile. “And I’m supposed to hand wash them, so.”
“Oh, so what you're saying is that you never wash them,” they tease.
“That is not at all what I'm saying.” They make an unimpressed face. “I do laundry, it's just…”
“Not often,” they supply helpfully. He tries to come up with something, but he's got nothing. “It's okay, I understand.”
“I promise I wash my clothes,” he mumbles, wilting.
“I know.” There's that new smile he's grown to recognize more clearly. It's this mischievous one they get when they’re teasing him, and it's so cute he doesn't have any room in him to get even a little irritable. “I've seen you do laundry maybe once or twice.”
“Hey,” he says, warning, and they laugh and run ahead of him, the squeaky wheels of the cart giggling alongside them.
After the night he almost burned down their apartment, he had felt different. It was like a switch being flipped, light abruptly filling up a dark room, and he's been squinting, struggling to adjust. But as he walks with them today, grocery shopping lit by blinding white fluorescents, he finds that he can see them rather clearly.
The connection between the two of them is tangible, palpable. It's workable pasta dough that's been kneaded to uniformity. The dough is malleable, clean, and when he touches it, sticky, glutenous residue doesn't cover his palms. When he catches at them peeking over their shoulder to make sure he's still following them, he chases away the urge to pull them into his arms. He throws the desire into boiling water in hopes that enough pressure will change those feelings into something more palatable. He's not sure if it's working.
Something happened when he hugged them that Saturday night. He doesn't dare name what that “something” is, but it's rising from where it's sitting at the bottom of the pot, just about to hit the surface—
“Hey, I gotta get some stuff in this aisle.” Carmy snaps out of it and follows them as they veer the cart to the left. He raises his eyes to read the categories on the sign.
“You bakin’ somethin’?” They both move out of the way for an oncoming cart.
“Yeah, was thinking about it.” They halt to a stop in front of the boxed cake mix and step back to fully peruse the shelves. He stands next to them, and they glance at him out of the corner of their eye. “You’re not judging me for getting box mix, are you?”
“Not at all,” he answers honestly. “Food is always better when made from scratch, but box mix has its uses. Besides, I’m not a baker.”
“That’s true, but I’m sure you still make an insane cake.” Carmy’s aware he can’t make them unsee his flash of a smile, but he still shrugs. “Sure, stay humble.”
“I try. What’s the occasion?”
“Ah, nothing much. It’s just my birthday.”
“Oh, okay.”
…And he's about to move on, just as casually as it came, but then the processing finishes.
“Why’re you lookin’ at me like that?” They ask confusedly.
“Is it your birthday today?”
“No, um, it’s this Thursday.” He exhales in palpable relief.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” He hates at how worked up he sounds.
“Um…” Their face is twinged with guilt. “...There was never a good time to bring it up?”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be getting upset.” He sighs, shakes his head. “I just feel like I should’ve known, I guess.”
“No, it’s fine. It’s not your fault. I never brought it up. Um…” Their hands are fiddling with the edges of their sleeves. “I just have complicated feelings about my birthday.”
“Ah, I see. I get that.” That, he can understand. “Is it all the gifts and stuff?”
“Kinda. It’s a part of it.” They lean down to grab a box of devil’s food cake, and that makes him remember that they’re in a grocery store. Not quite the best place for a personal conversation like this. They’re being vague, but he won’t press. Not right now.
“You shouldn’t be baking for yourself on your birthday,” Carmy mutters. They smile at that, but it’s different. It’s heavy with melancholy.
“It’s alright. I’m gonna be celebrating with my friends this weekend, just not on my actual birthday.” His conflicted expression persists. “It’s okay, really. It’s just a day. It’ll be enough of a present to not have to go into work.”
“Put that back,” he blurts out. “I’ll make you a cake.”
“Don’t you work?” Their eyebrows are arched in surprise. “You really don’t—”
“I know I don’t. But I want to. I do work, yeah, but I’ll, I’ll get someone to cover me.” He’s never said those words before in his life, and now that they’re out, he can’t take them back. As a matter of fact, he doesn’t want to take them back. “We’re friends, aren’t we?”
“Of course,” they reply quickly.
“Then let me do this. Please.” He has no idea where this courage is coming from. “I want to. I know I'm always working, but I really…” Their eyes are wide with wonder, yet watchful. It shouldn't make him falter, but it does. His heart stutters and whatever bravado briefly gripped him fades away. “I’m…probably being too pushy right now. Tell me to fuck off?”
“I’m not gonna tell you to fuck off for wanting to bake me a cake,” they laugh, easing his worries like they always do. “C’mon, Carm.”
“So, uh, is that a yes, or…?”
“Just so we’re clear, I’m not trying to ask you to take off of work for my birthday,” they start carefully, “but I wouldn’t object to it. So, yeah. It’s a yes.”
“Okay.” He can’t help his giddy smile. There's someone saying you look stupid like this, but he’s with them, and it makes everything else silent. “Okay, good.”
“You’re…being super sweet about all this.” He doesn’t understand why—maybe it’s the way they say it—but hearing that makes his neck go hot.
“I mean…friends do stuff like this, don’t they?”
“Only the good ones.” They beam beautifully at him. He hasn’t done anything to warrant their affection, he thinks, but the feeling of their smile is so warm. He can’t resist soaking in it.
He's glad that lady luck blessed him just enough to stop their birthday from passing him by. He's been itching for an opportunity to repay them for all the bullshit they've had to take from him as of recent (although he knows if he brought it up, they would say it wasn't anything worth repaying). They deserve something good from him for once, not panic attacks and nightmares.
He just wishes he could figure out why they were going to spend their birthday alone. He knows them a lot better now, but there's still so much left shrouded. He wants to know them inside and out—he wants to learn what makes them tick, what keeps them up at night, what makes them happy. He wants to know all of it in its entirety, to fill in the gaps in the puzzle he doesn't have the pieces for.
He has some of the pieces. He understands that their relationship with their family to his—distant, strained, and difficult. Unfortunately, that’s about it. He doesn’t know any of the specifics. It’s not like he’s talked to them about his family outside of the off-handed bitter remarks, just as they have, but he finds that this fact leaves him dissatisfied.
He just hopes that they'll let him in. He's not sure if they will, but…he's gonna try. He has to. He's sick of not trying.
. . . . .
“You want to take off?” Richie’s staring at Carmy like he’s grown a second head. They're taking a smoke break in the back. “I don’t know what sort of doppelganger bullshit this is, but if you’re trying to pretend to be Carmen, you’re doing a shit job.”
“Very funny, jackass,” Carmy mutters. “I’m being serious. This Thursday.”
“All day?” Carmy grimaces, but he nods. Richie shakes his head. “You’re being weird. Really fuckin’ weird.”
“I know I shouldn’t. It’s a bad idea, but—”
“Cousin, no, that’s not at all what’s goin’ on here,” Richie interrupts, and Carmy’s at a loss for words. “This is the best idea you’ve ever had.”
“What?” Carmy squints at him. “Are you being serious?”
“‘Course I’m serious. I’m always serious.” Carmy decides not to comment on that. “Do you know how many times I’ve tried to get you off this ship for just one fucking second?”
“As the owner of this place, you’ve tried way too many times,” he replies dryly.
“Uh, as the original co-owner of this place, you don’t listen to me enough.” Again, Carmy decides not to elaborate on that one. It’s not worth it. “Take the day off. I was running it fine before, and I’ll keep running it.”
“No, no, we’re not saying that, it was not fine,” Carmy starts, but Richie’s already flipping him off.
“Whatever, I already know, new fucking system and all that. Don’t get anxiety or whatever over it, that’s why you got Syd hustling shit your way, right?”
“Uh.” Carmy didn’t realize that Richie had even been paying attention to the new hierarchy in the restaurant, let alone respecting it in any capacity. “Yeah, she is.”
“Then it’s fine.” Richie blows smoke in his face, and Carmy swats it away with a glare. “It was fine when you came in an hour late today, wasn’t it?”
“You guys knew I wasn’t gonna come in until later,” Carmy argues, defensive (although he’s not sure if there’s actually anything to argue about).
“Exactly.” Richie sighs all of a sudden, a long one that sounds like it’s bone deep. “Carm. Let me be straight with you. You need to do this. Okay? No backing out of this one.”
“Why’re you sayin’ this? What are you sayin’?”
“It’s ‘cause of your roommate, right? This Thursday?”
“...Yeah.” Carmy pales. “How did you—?”
“Fuckin’ knew it,” Richie says, grinning. “It was obvious.”
“No way. I didn’t say shit.”
“You didn’t need to.” Richie flicks the ash off his cigarette. “They’re changin’ you, man. We can all see it.”
“...” Carmy can’t deny that. He doesn't have time to ponder on that right now. “Is it really okay?”
“Yeah, you could stand to have an attitude adjustment.”
“I wasn’t talking about that, asshole. I was talking about Thursday.”
“Yes, for fuck’s sake, it’s completely fine.” Richie claps a hand on his shoulder, solid in its grip. It makes Carmy’s eyes snap to him, mostly in confusion. “So what’s the occasion? Must be important.”
“It’s their birthday. I mean, I could just go home early that day, but—”
“Yo, if you’re gonna take off, don’t halfass it—”
“That’s not what I was gonna say. When I’m here, I can’t seem to find my way out. This place…it just has a way of trapping you in.” He doesn’t expect Richie to nod, but he does. “I know if I don’t take the whole day off, I’ll never get out of here in time. Not until it’s too late.”
For some reason, that makes Richie laugh.
“Yeah. That's it.” Richie shakes his head as smoke trails out of his mouth. “That’s just it, man. You have to make time for the things that’re important. Even the recitals where you have to listen to five year olds play twinkle twinkle little star 20 times. You can’t miss shit like this. Because once you miss it, it’s gone.”
“Rich.” Carmy wants to say something to make that haunted expression leave Richie's face, but he doesn't come up with anything in time.
“Don’t give me that look.” Richie’s hand falls from his shoulder. “I’m just tryin’ to stop you from fucking shit up. They actually seem like a good person.”
“Y’think so?”
“I do. You?”
“Yeah.” Carmy doesn’t bother hiding his smile, even though he can already sense Richie’s teasing coming from a mile away. “They’re a really good friend.”
“Friend. Sure.” Richie snorts.
“Don’t push it,” and for some reason he adds, “they were gonna spend it alone.”
“Huh. Sociable guy like them spending it alone?”
“I know. I didn't ask. Maybe I should've.”
“Maybe. I dunno, cousin. Everyone's got their secrets. Especially the ones that try to act like they don't have any.”
“You're strangely full of wisdom today.”
“Fuck right off,” Richie responds in regular Richie fashion.
“I think they're like me. Like us.” Carmy's not sure why he's saying this on a Monday afternoon at work out of all times, but the truth bursts out of him beyond his will. Richie's expression shifts into something more solemn, something recognizable. “Y'know what I mean.”
“...Yeah.” Richie claps his hand on Carmy's back again. “Shitty parents club.”
As Carmy stands there in the back, feet sore and tobacco in the air, he sees his childhood in flashes. He's five years old again and is following Mike around with scuffed sneakers and untamed hair, although he supposes that unruliness never truly changed with time. There's warm sunlight filtering through green summer leaves. He hears his mother behind him, somewhere, but maybe he doesn't.
He thinks of home, of his bedroom, and it is cold. He has homework he’s failed to complete again. It's sitting on his desk, on top of all of the other shit he can't finish. There's screaming, and he's not listening.
He blinks. He’s 30, and he hasn’t talked to his mom since Michael died.
“Shitty parents club,” Carmy repeats hollowly.
. . . . .
When Thursday morning arrives, Carmy ends up greeting his roommate with flour in his hair and eggs sizzling on the pan.
“Um,” they say, just as Carmy goes “G'morning.” They both freeze, brief awkwardness circling between them before it dissipates with their breathless laugh.
“Good morning. I didn't think you'd actually take off,” they admit.
“I said I would,” he replies quietly, but it's not accusatory. How many times had he said he'd be home for dinner just for him to arrive when they're already asleep? He tries not to make empty promises anymore. Nonetheless, he understands their surprise. “Um, I'm almost done with breakfast. I didn't get to the coffee yet.”
“Am I supposed to be offended?” They laugh. “That's the least I can do, with you doing all of this.” They sluggishly shuffle behind him to reach down into some kitchen cabinets. “It's a special day, so I'll even make us pour overs.”
“That's true. It is special.” He peeks over his shoulder, pausing from basting the eggs in brown butter to see them setting up on the kitchen island. They gently place the hourglass-shaped glass onto the counter with a light clink. He silently switches the button on for the electric gooseneck kettle to his right. “Am I allowed to wish you a happy birthday, or should I not?”
“Hm, I don't mind. Just don't overdo it, which I doubt you will.” They pull out a bag of coarse ground coffee and a filter. As soon as they open the bag, he can smell the sweet scent of the light roast floating towards him.
“Okay. Then, happy birthday,” he says as casually as he can.
“Thanks, Carmy.” He studies their expression, searching for annoyance in their content expression, but he doesn't find any. “That's not even really what I meant by today being special, though.”
“How else did you mean it?” The eggs are done. He reaches over the hot pan to cut the heat.
“Well, y'know. I dunno if we’ve ever had a full day off together.” They're carefully scooping grounds into the filter fitted on top of the glass, creating a small hill. “I think I managed to catch you coming home early on my off days sometimes, but never a full day.”
“Huh.” Carmy has to take a minute to think about that one. “Yeah, I don't know either. I think you're right.”
“Then, like I said. It's special.” They seal up the bag of coffee grounds, and then they frown. “Shit. I forgot to turn on the kettle. Can you—”
“Already did it,” he reports, pleased, and his sense of accomplishment only doubles at their sigh of relief.
“Thank god.” There's the familiar clicking sound of the kettle reaching the perfect temperature. “Just in time, too. Can you hand it to me?”
“Yes, chef,” he says, because it always makes them laugh. Today is no exception. He slides the metallic kettle over to them.
“So what delights did you whip up over there?” They ask. They begin pouring the almost boiling water over their coffee grounds in a slow circle, gradually inching towards the middle. “It smells amazing. I want the full break-down.”
“The full break-down, got it.” On two circular plates, he's carefully placing a fried egg, thick cut bacon, and a slice of toast with jam and butter. “Uh…it's nothin’ special, just stuff we had in the fridge. We've got a, uh, brown-butter fried egg with a little paprika, sage, pepper, salt…”
“Oh, just an egg made with liquid gold, no big deal,” they imitate.
“Cut it out,” he snips back, but he's smiling and they know it. “There's honestly not much to it. This thick-cut bacon was in the back, so I cooked the rest of it. And the toast is just brioche with salted honey butter and blueberry jam.”
“Carmy. C'mon. That's nothing special to you?”
“I mean.” It's not quite nothing, he thinks. “I can make nicer breakfasts, is all.”
“That's what you said when you made me garlic bread, and that fucking blew my mind.” They set the kettle down with a thunk. The glass is full of dark coffee. Prepped next to them is their favorite glass mug alongside Carmy's. He's not sure how they knew that it was his favorite, but he doesn't question it.
“I'm just letting you know that you should wait to be really impressed.”
“Too fucking late, man.” He's turned around and placed the two breakfast platters on the kitchen island, and they gawk openly at it. “Holy fuck.”
“It's ready,” he says, surprisingly meek. He can't comprehend why anxiety's hitting him now of all times. He's served acclaimed food critics, top-security government officials, and celebrities more times than he can count. Before that audience, he never faltered, but in front of his roommate in their crumpled pajamas, his heart stutters.
“Oh, wow…” They regard the food with undeserved softness. Like a punctured balloon, his anxiety immediately begins deflating. They're staring at the food like it's a painting in a museum. “You seriously didn't have to do all of this.”
“I know. I just wanted to.” He feels heat on the back of his neck. “Is…is that okay?”
“It's more than okay.” Suddenly, he notices their eyes are puffy, like they were crying. “Goddamnit, get over here.”
He only registers what's about to happen for one second before they're hugging him. Their palms are on his back, and the top of their head tucks under his chin perfectly. He makes a small, surprised noise.
“I, I'm glad you like it.” He links his arms around them, allows himself to rest his chin on their head. With their face turned to the side, their ear's pressed up against his chest, and he's instantly struck with the paranoia that they're gonna hear his rapid heartbeat.
“I haven't even taken a bite yet, and I love it.” They lean back then, arms still wrapped around him and head craned upwards to look at him. It's far too intimate for what they are, and Carmy hates how his heart beats even harder. “Thank you for doing all this. Seriously. I…”
“The breakfast's just a side thing, I'm, um, still baking you a cake.”
“What? You're doing this and a cake?”
“Um,” Carmy repeats intelligently.
“Carmy. Carmy, Carmy, Carmy.” Their words ooze affection, but surely he's just imagining it. Their hands are crawling up his back. “God, I could just ki—”
“There's the timer,” Carmy blurts out, because his phone's ringing and so are his ears. At the sound, they let him go, and he grabs two towels to retrieve the two circular cake pans from the oven. A toothpick poked through the middle comes out clean, so he sets them on a wire rack to cool.
He needs to focus on the cakes. That's the most important thing.
“Oh my god.” They lean in close to the cake and take a deep breath. “Is this—”
“Devil's food cake, yeah.” The heat searing his face is surely from opening the oven.
“You—how did you—” Their smile is luminous with joy. “You really pay attention to every little thing, don't you?”
“Sometimes. When it counts.” He fidgets awkwardly, nails picking at the sides of his fingers. “Wanna eat by the window, or…?”
“Fuck yeah I do. Can you bring the plates over? I'll have the coffee over in just a second.”
Carmy sets up at their little table first, placing the plates just right across from one another. The morning sun casts a cozy glow through their speckled window, streaking planes of light across the floor. He patiently waits and watches them pace from the fridge to the counter, splashing cream into their mugs. Through the transparent glass, he watches the white fizzle into the dark coffee, blending into a warm brown.
“Just a tiny spoon of sugar for you, right?” They peek over their shoulder, catching his stare, and he nods. He's also not quite sure how they know that, either. They've had coffee in the morning maybe a handful of times before.
He supposes they also pay attention sometimes, when it counts.
“Alright, here we go.” They bring a mug in each hand and set them delicately down on the table. He notes that his coffee is the perfect color. “Oh, thanks for waiting. You didn't have to.”
“I, I guess so, yeah. It's just, uh, you always wait for me, so…”
“That's—that's true.” An odd tension sets in their face, but they laugh it off, and it disappears. “I guess I’m not used to it anymore.”
A part of him wants to ask further by what they meant by that, but they're already taking pictures of his food so dutifully. He doesn't want to ruin it, so he eats.
It's nice to have a solid breakfast for once. He had taken their advice from the other night and had been drinking milk with protein powder. It was nice not to feel like he was teetering the edge by lunch time, but truthfully, it was a bit unsavory. This breakfast platter is much more palatable. It also helps that his stomach pains aren't active today.
Time rolls by slowly this quiet morning, and Carmy recognizes the oddity of it immediately. It's clear to see when by this time, he's usually already done at least ten laps through the restaurant. An irritating signal in his brain is telling him that he needs to get up and do something, not sit around and eat, but for once, he doesn't want to listen.
A memory from roughly two weeks ago (or was it one week?) unearths all of sudden. He was up early, drinking shitty coffee and sinking into dissociation. Mornings were lonely, as he was usually the only one up, but not that day. His roommate came stumbling into the kitchen, awake from a restless night. They chatted before he had to head out, and he remembers wishing he had more time in the morning to spend with them.
He imagined a morning just like this one, with pajamas, food, and messy hair. He daydreamed about having all the time in the world, and he thought about getting to spend it all with them. Now he’s sitting in that moment he imagined, except that it’s real. They're across from him in their wrinkled pajamas and bedhead, contentedly mowing through their food. There's a smear of jam on the corner of their mouth. He takes a sip of his coffee, and it's perfect, just as they made it for him.
This amount of good should scare him, needs to scare him, but he just can't bring himself to care anymore. He wants more than nightmares, cigarettes, and floating just above the budget. He wants this.
He tastes his coffee and reminds himself that he’s still here. The moment hasn’t passed him by.
“Is it good?” He asks quietly. It’s a rhetorical question, it always is, but he can’t help himself. He wants to hear it from them.
“So. Fucking. Good.” They have to finish chewing before they answer. “You always knock it out of the park. If this is the prelude, I don’t know if I can handle what’s next,” they say, gesturing towards the cooling cake.
“It won’t be ready for a while yet. You have time to prepare yourself.” That makes them smile. All according to plan. “Got anything in mind for today?”
“Nothing glamorous. I was just gonna go out for a little. Go thrifting, maybe watch a movie later. Smoke a joint.” They shrug. “Just my usual sort of thing.”
“Mm.” He dusts off crumbs from the toast off his fingers on his pants. “Sounds like a good time. You still wanna go?”
“I do, yeah.” They stare at him for a moment, as if processing his words. Or just him. “Do you…wanna tag along, or…?”
Whenever they ask him if he wants to spend time together (whether it’s grocery shopping, smoking, or watching a show), they usually offer it with an air of nonchalance. Carmy’s assumed it’s been out of politeness, restraining their expression as to not put any pressure onto him. That’s the person he’s used to, not this uneasy anxiety, someone afraid to ask him to spend time with them.
It reminds him of himself in every way.
“I’d love to tag along,” he answers easily, just as they’ve always done for him. “I’ve got the whole day off, after all.”
“Right. ‘Course.” He watches their little smile double in size. “I promise to not make you watch me try on clothes for too long.”
“I wouldn’t mind. I like thrifting, y’know.” And you, he thinks to himself.
“You do? Oh, of course—” They make a contemplative noise to themself. “Vintage denim. I always wondered how you managed to have so many pairs.”
“Once you know where to look, they’re pretty easy to find. I can help you find some, if you want.”
“I’d love that. I realized the other day that I don’t have any dark wash jeans, so—actually, the truth is that I do have a pair, but they’re so fucked up and old that I never wear them anymore. Anyway, I need new jeans. Think you could find some dark wash blue jeans for me?”
“If you’re willing to hit up more than one store, then definitely,” he replies, just a smidge cocky.
“I’m willing to hit up even two more stores.” He pretends to gasp, to which they nod confidently. “Yeah. That’s right. Maybe even three.”
“We won’t need three,” Carmy promises. “I’m better than that. Probably won’t even need two, but…” He shrugs. “We’ll see what they’ve got.”
“Okay, Mr. Confident over here,” they tease. “Let’s see what you’ve got!”
They head out after they both clean the kitchen and freshen up. Carmy gets the flour out of his hair and rewets his hair to revive some of his curls. He silently thanks his past self for showering the night before. With the passage of the morning cold and the rising sun, the afternoon weather’s become brisk and pleasant. However, the weather’s barely a factor in how he’s dressing.
Is this too much? Is this not enough? He’s switching shirts and pants in the mirror like he’s about to go on a date. He knows he’s not, swears to himself that he’s not, but he’s put product in his hair and cologne on his wrists and temples. It’s not a date, but he can’t fucking decide what to wear.
He sucks it up and settles on a gray sweater, light wash blue jeans, and white sneakers. From under his collar and at the bottom of his sweater peeks out a brown button up. It’s probably too much, but this is his sixth outfit change. He’s fed up with it and himself.
After adjusting the gold chain that got hidden under his collar, he steps out.
He finds them already waiting by the door in this thick knit cardigan and fitted plaid pants that makes his heart stutter. When they hear him approaching, their head snaps up from their phone, and their skin sparkles with touches of makeup.
“You look really nice.” He has no idea how he let that slip, but he’s more shocked that he didn’t stutter once.
“Ah, th—thank you,” they stammer, fingers fidgeting with the edge of their sleeve. He’s not sure if it's their makeup or their skin that’s doing the blushing. It’s nice to see them being the one tripping over their words for once. “You look pretty handsome yourself.”
“Oh. Um.” Handsome? It echoes in his head. He instantly feels self conscious. So much for being the more suave one for once. “Thanks, uh…I just didn’t wanna wear my work clothes,” he lies in an attempt to ease his embarrassment.
“I gotcha.” He’s glad they don’t challenge him on it. “Shall we head out?”
“Yeah. Where we headed first?”
They take the metro to their personal favorite shop a little up north. The metro’s surprisingly busy for a Thursday afternoon, but the crowd forces the two of them to be huddled next to each other. They’re both standing close to a pole by the window, each with one hand wrapped around the metal.
As passengers come and go, they step closer to him to move out of the way. Eventually it just gets to a point where they’re standing nearly pressed up against his chest. He tries not to dwell on how that makes him feel, but he can smell the fragrance they put on, and it’s very distracting.
Luckily, the ride is short. Any longer on the train, he might’ve put an arm around their shoulder, god forbid.
“If we can’t find what I’m looking for here, maybe you can show me one of your favorite spots to go thrifting,” they say as they enter the thrift store. The interior is decorated, clean, and lovely, and unlike the metro, it’s not packed to the brim with people. It smells faintly of incense, and there’s local art framed all over the walls for sale. It oozes warmth and excitement, much like them.
“There’s a ton of shit here, so maybe we won’t need to after all.” He finds himself intaking everything at once, eyes flickering from sign to sign. “I’ve never been here before. This is really cool.”
“It’s my favorite place to find new clothes.” They trail down the racks, finger flitting between clothes. “I hope you can find something you like here, too.”
“I’m sure I will.” He’s already walking to their denim section and immediately spots some contenders. “I think I already have.”
He’s not sure if they mean to spend hours in there, but he certainly does. There’s more than just clothes to look at, although that’s what takes up most of his time. There’s dishes, furniture, cds, vinyls, books, even electronics. He goes back and forth with them, clothing articles piling up in his arms as they sit on battered couches together and peruse scratched cds. Everywhere he looks, there’s just more, more, and more.
“Okay, I’ve gotta cut myself off,” they say as they leave the furniture section. They’ve sat on nearly every chair in that place. “I already have so many clothes to try on, and that’s not even including the jeans you’ve picked out for me.”
“If it helps, some of these are mine.” Carmy flips through the layers of hanging jeans that have built up on his forearm. “If you can believe it, I even found some stuff that isn’t denim.”
“I’m not sure if I can, but seeing is believing.” They thumb through some long-sleeves he’s carrying that are seeping out from under the jeans. “I’m just glad you were able to find some stuff for yourself, too. Not that I was that worried.”
He hands them the jeans he’s found for them, all dark wash and in their size. To his surprise, they also hand him an article of clothing for him to try on.
“I thought you’d look good in this. You’ll have to show me when you try it on,” they say, and it’s innocent, completely meaningless, but as soon as Carmy agrees and rushes to hide in the changing room, he views in the mirror and sees his flushed face.
Doesn’t mean anything, he repeats to himself, over and over and over. Stop getting in over your head.
He tries on his items of choice first. The first is a dark green henley that looked better on the rack than it did him, so he puts it in the reject pile. The second is a dark blue long sleeve that fits just right. It’s cheap, too, so it’s an automatic purchase. He presumes the way to word it is that it hugs him in all the right places, but he’s not sure. The rest are jeans, of which only one he decides to buy. A bit pricey, but for the brand and year, it’s worth it (although he basically always uses this reasoning with himself).
Now, for the piece of clothing they picked out for him. It’s a dark brown t-shirt that seems like it’s just the right length. It’s a muted, yet warm brown, a bit rosey in hue. He doesn’t realize it’s a v-neck until he gets it over his head and down his shoulders.
“I’ve never worn a v-neck before,” he calls out to the room next to him.
“Oh, are you trying it on? Do you like it?” Their slightly muffled voice calls back to him.
“Um…I’m not sure,” he admits with a shaky laugh. The collar is lower than he’s used to. It dips below his collarbones, and between them dangles his chain. “Should I show you?”
“Yes! Hold on, lemme get some pants on. …Okay, I’m stepping out!”
He hears their door open alongside his. When they see him, their expression snaps into what he believes is surprise and delight. He’s sure he looks somewhat the same.
They’re wearing one of the vintage jeans he picked out for them—dark blue Levi’s. Although they’re rolled up a couple times at the bottom, it seems to fit them just right. As he stares, he’s reminded of his many pairs of Levi’s, and it’s more or less like seeing them in his clothes, which is. Which is. Uh. Yeah.
“I knew that would suit you,” they say with a grin, to which he realizes he can’t hide his blush.
“It’s not weird?”
“Not at all. It looks good.” They tilt their head to the side as they openly look him over, hip cocked. Something in their gaze is making him hot. “No pressure to buy it, of course.”
“It’s different from what I’m used to, but…” He looks down, smooths the fabric with his palm. “It’s kinda nice, something like this. Um, and what do you think about the jeans?” He needs to direct the attention off him quickly.
“Oh, I love them. The others ended up fitting not quite right on me, but that’s how it goes.” They move from side to side, almost twirling. It’s cute. “I love these, though. Just a little long, but I’m used to it.”
“That’s how it always is. I can hem them for you, if you want. I usually hem mine.”
“And he sews,” they say, seemingly to themself, but they’re looking right at him. Embarrassing. “If you don’t mind, that’d be amazing. Either way, I’m probably getting them.”
“Good. You should. They fit well.”
“Yeah?” They glance back into their fitting room, likely examining themself in the mirror, and then back at him. “Okay, then. Definitely getting them.” With that and a cheeky grin, they go back into their dressing room to try on the rest of their clothes. Carmy follows suit, grateful to hide his embarrassed face.
Carmy heads to check out with the dark blue long sleeve, a pair of jeans, and the brown v-neck. They’ve decided on the pair of jeans they showed him earlier and a little purple tank-top he wishes he got to see on them.
“Will that be all for you today?” The cashier asks him as he checks out first. Even the cashiers here are pretty nice, he finds.
“Oh, their stuff, too.” He nods to them, who’s standing right next to him.
“Carmy.” They glare at him.
“What?” He feels himself smiling.
“You can’t do this to me.”
“C’mon.” He nudges them gently with his elbow. “It’s my present to you.”
“Oh, so the present wasn’t the breakfast? Or the cake? Or helping me pick these out?”
“Why can’t it be all of them?” He decides to stop this in its tracks and takes the clothes out of their hands, sliding it onto the counter. “Just these two, and that’ll be it.”
“Just you wait until your birthday hits,” they mutter darkly, shaking their head. “Just you wait.”
“I haven’t told you my birthday.” He pauses. “Right?”
“I’ll ask Richie.”
“No, you won’t.”
“You’re giving me no choice.”
“You could also just, I don't know, not ask—”
“I wouldn't have to if you didn't force my hand—”
“You guys are cute together,” the cashier comments with a smile, surely a harmless, meaningless thing, but it shuts the both of them up. Carmy can already feel the impact of it on his psyche, and he decides to tuck away the surging emotions to unpack later. At least, he'll try.
“You really didn't have to get those for me,” they tell him when they're exiting the store. “But I guess I should just be saying thank you. So…thank you.”
“Sure. I mean, it would've been better if it was wrapped and stuff, but…” He shrugs. “Had to get you a real present, not just food.”
“Not just food, my ass.” That makes him laugh. “It'll be nice to have something to remind me of this day, though. That's one of the nice parts of getting gifts. Everytime I wear these clothes, I'll think of you.”
“Good. Yeah, that's…good,” he finishes lamely. He nods like their words haven't flustered him, but he's sure they can tell. They laugh, and he can tell it's because of his reaction.
“I'm sorry that the cashier said that,” they say out of nowhere.
“Why're you apologizing? It's not your fault.” Any embarrassment he was feeling before is immediately replaced with a new, more potent sort of embarrassment. He was hoping they wouldn't mention it.
“I guess that's true. I don't know, I just…” They trail off. “Just hope it didn't upset you.”
“Not at all,” he lies, and he prays they believe it.
. . . . .
The metro is less crowded on the way home. They sit comfortably next to each other and watch the city pass them by. A part of Carmy mourns the closeness they had on the way there, but the other part tells him to get it together and keep his distance.
“I'mma take a nap,” they say with a yawn. Their cardigan and bag have been tossed onto the couch. The new clothes have been thrown into the laundry machine, and there's the muffled sound of running water. “Maybe we could smoke and watch a movie later, though.”
“Yeah, that sounds nice.” He peers into the fridge to check on the cake rounds. Just as he left them. “Have a good nap.”
“Thanks, Carm,” they reply sleepily. “Wouldn't be a good day if I didn't get to have a nice nap, after all.” With that, they shuffle into their room and shut the door behind them.
Carmy spends the next two hours flying around the apartment, baking, cooking, cleaning. The sun slowly sets as he goes. He keeps his body and hands moving in hopes that his head doesn't have a chance to catch up, but it manages to keep the pace. It always does.
The crumb coat's fucked up on the left, his first train of thought says. He inspects the surface, eyes following the circumference of the cake. There's a little loose crumb. With the edge of his spatula, he tucks the crumb away.
The faint smell of chocolate wafts up from the cold cake rounds. He's hunched over the kitchen island, hands reaching between dark chocolate frosting and cake. The afternoon sun casts harsh lights onto the cake, and it glistens. He genuinely can't remember the last time he's made a layered cake. He's never been much of a baker, anyhow.
You're going to disappoint them, his second train of thought interrupts, running parallel to the other one at full speed. Who do you think you are? You don't make cakes.
He leans back, inspects his work. The crumb coats are perfect.
Fuck off, he thinks back, triumphant. Look at that shit. He runs his finger along the spatula, picking up congealed crumbs and frosting. He licks it off, and it's delicious. And it tastes good, asshole. So shut the fuck up.
You're being a nuisance, the thoughts continue. Carmy's pops the crumb coats in the freezer for a quick set. They don't actually like any of this. They're just being nice to make you feel better.
They seemed happy to me, he thinks, but he's faltering. He's washing the dishes, and the sensation of the warm water feels distant. They loved the food I made.
Couldn't you tell they were lying? He doesn't understand why these thoughts are rampaging through his head now of all times. It's not unfamiliar, but it's inconvenient. Keep this up, and you'll actually be surprised when they drop you.
Without warning, a memory hits him . As his hands drip with soap, he's reminded of playing with Michael and Sugar in the summer when he was five. Or six, or seven, he's never quite sure. They were outdoors at a local park, and the heat made the metal of the playground searing hot to the touch.
He was blowing bubbles, and the sticky mixture from the bottle was getting all over his hands. In his memory, Carmy watches the way the iridescent bubbles floated away and left little circles on the surface of the plastic slide. He can't remember why he wasn't playing with the others. He can remember the sound of their laughing voices in the distance, gleeful and delighted without him. He thinks he tried to join in, but it didn't work. It often just didn't work, and it was all his fault.
The memory ends, and Carmy's finished washing the dishes.
This is working, he thinks to himself. His hands are dried out from the hot water and soap. I swear to you, it's working. So just stop. Okay?
There's no response. Good enough.
He hears the door opening as soon as he's putting the finishing touches on the cake. With a damp paper towel, he carefully swipes away stray drops of frosting that fell onto the cake stand. He thinks it's best described as if a tiramisu was turned into a devil's food cake. It's not the best cake he's ever made, but it's definitely up there in terms of looks. All the components of the cake tasted good separately, so he hopes it makes sense in his mouth as much as it did in his head.
“Have a nice nap?” He asks before he turns his head. They're standing in the hallway, bed hair hastily tied back.
“Sorta. It was okay.” Their eyes are glued onto the cake as they walk up to the island. “Is this…?”
“This is for you, yeah,” he finishes for them. They take a seat on one of the chairs at the island. “It's a, uh, devil's food cake with vanilla mascarpone cream on the inside. The outside's this coffee buttercream…” He trails off, not knowing what else to say. He could mention the dutch processed cocoa powder, the expensive vanilla bean pods, or the endless sifting, but it feels too gratuitous.
“Wow…” They're still staring, as if it's not quite real to them. “I can't believe this is for me. It almost looks too pretty to eat, but you know I can't wait to tear into this.”
“We could, uh, have it now, if you, if you want,” he says hesitantly.
“I don't know if I could wait.” Their smile grows wider. “You even put candles on it?”
“We don't have to light them or anything if you don't want to,” he adds quickly.
“The candles are the fun part. I don't mind that. The song is…okay I guess, but…” They give him an expectant, excited look. “Were you gonna sing for me?”
“...Only if you wanted to,” he mumbles, suddenly stricken with embarrassment.
“Would that be okay? If I wanted that?”
“I wouldn't mind.” Not if it's you.
“Okay. Then, yeah.” They pull out a lighter from their pocket. “I’d really like that.”
Carmy cuts the overhead lights before taking out his own lighter to help them light the rest of the candles. One by one, the dark room gradually illuminates until it's filled with a warm, orange glow. The flickering flames cast shifting shadows onto their smiling face and reflect into their glossy eyes.
“Ready?” He asks quietly.
“I'm ready,” they whisper.
Carmy doesn't really need to clear his throat, but he does so anyway. He can't recall the last time he sang happy birthday to anyone, let alone by himself. This is the first time he's ever sung in front of an audience, too.
I can do this, he thinks to himself. I can do this.
His voice is awkward and scratchy. He never uses it like this, has never sang for anyone in his life. His ears burn, and he hates the sound of his voice, but he reminds himself to focus on their delighted little smile and warm gaze. The room is far too quiet for his voice, making the words painfully clear.
“Happy birthday to you,” he finishes singing, voice trailing off awkwardly. He's more than ready to finish singing now. “Uh, make a wish…?”
“Right.” The two of them sit in the flickering candle light for a moment longer, the silence thick. Carmy watches their face, their eyes boring into the candles with an expression he can only describe as longing. Then, they blow out the candles with a decisive blow, and the room goes dark.
He moves to switch on the lights. When he turns back to look at them, tears are streaming down their face.
“Hey,” he says softly. He props his elbows on the counter, standing across from them and tilting his head to the side. They're not meeting his gaze, glazed eyes boring into the dripping candles. “What's wrong?”
“I'm sorry,” they whisper with a sniffle, and it sounds like a reflex. Something about them suddenly seems so much smaller. “I shouldn't be crying.”
“It's okay. I don't mind.” That makes them smile, even if it's shaky. “Was the singing too much?”
“No, it wasn't your singing,” they say with a laugh. “Your singing was lovely. It's just—I'm so happy. You made today so special.”
“Yeah?” He fights the urge to reach over and wipe their tears. “I'm glad. I wanted to make it good. I…” He hesitates. “...I didn't like the idea of you spending it alone.”
“I didn't either. And I thought I was going to have to be alone…but then you—then you took off work, and you made me breakfast, you went shopping with me—even got me clothes—and now this—” Another rush of tears gushes from their eyes, and they hastily wipe at it with their shirt.
“You've done way more for me. This is the least I could do.” Before he can stop himself, his hand is brushing hair out of their eyes. They freeze for a split second, eyes finally flickering up towards him. “Sorry,” he mumbles.
“It's okay,” they whisper back. “Um…” They let out a shaky sigh, the sort of trembling sound that happens after crying too much. “I feel like I should explain.”
“You don't have to if you don't want to,” he assures them quickly, “but I…I'd like to know. If that's okay.”
“I want you to know. I, I do.” They open their mouth to keep talking, but shaky breaths continue to stifle them. It's hard to watch.
“Breathe,” he reminds them, quietly. He visibly takes in a deep breath, silently encouraging them to breathe with him. They follow suit, closing their eyes and taking a slow breath. Tears slip silently from their eyes. Gradually, their breathing becomes less of a staccato, evening out into something much more manageable.
“Thank you,” they murmur. He nods. They already sound a lot calmer. “I'm not sure where to start. I…I suppose I'll start with today.” Another deep breath. “I didn’t get a call from my parents today.”
“Ah…” The first missing piece.
“I knew they weren’t going to. But a part of me still hoped…” They stop and shake their head. “It's the first year that it's been like this.”
“What happened?”
“Uh…I went no contact with my family about a year ago.” Another pained, hollow laugh. The second piece. “I didn't even really want to—it was a complicated, shitty situation. My parents were being their usual shitty selves, and I just wanted them to apologize. It was over such a small thing, and, and I just…I don't know. I thought maybe I could fix things.” He's never seen them with such a heavy expression, etched with such weariness. “I just wanted them to apologize to me, Carm. That's all I wanted. And then they cut me off cold.”
Their voice is trembling again, and the tears are falling faster. The collar of their shirt is dark with moisture. Carmy hates that he doesn't know what to say. He hates just staring at them, silent as he tries to find the words.
Suddenly, he thinks of Michael.
“Michael never let me work in the restaurant,” he tells them. “That's why I went to culinary school. A big part of it, anyway. He just cut me off, didn't let me in no matter what I did, and it was…” He makes a vague hand gesture. “I felt insane. I was so fucking angry. I couldn't understand him. And I'm not saying that's anything like what you've been through, but…” He looks into their watchful eyes. “I'm sorry. I think I'm trying to say that I, that I understand. A little.”
“I…I appreciate that.” They give him a small, wobbly smile. He adores their smile, but seeing it through their tears twists something painfully in his chest. “He would've been lucky to have you. You're an excellent chef.”
“I am now, anyway.” He sighs. “Your family's missing out on you, too. You're…” Say it. Just say it. “You're a really wonderful person. I can't imagine…”
I can't imagine anyone looking at you and not loving what they see, he thinks suddenly, and he instantly realizes he can't say it. He can barely even comprehend that he just thought it.
He can't process this right now. This isn't the time.
“I keep trying to wrap my head around it all, wondering what I did wrong, what I could've done better… Sometimes, the conclusion I arrive at is that I must have done something to deserve this. That I just, I don't know, that maybe I'm just this permanent fuck-up, and…” They run a tired hand over their wet face, through their hair. “My parents fucked me up real good, man.”
There's something familiar about their words, and Carmy realizes it's because it sounds like him. He would've never guessed that under their easy-going smiles was a reflection of himself. He recognizes himself in their self-deprecation, the bone-deep pain. There was always a sense of sympathetic connection between the two of them, but he had no idea. He had no idea how far deep the mutual experiences went.
A part of him still can't believe that this is the truth, that this is what lies at their core, but then he remembers. He thinks about the night they were throwing up into the toilet. They were sobbing, crying into his shoulder about how much they hate themself.
“You know you didn't deserve it. Right?” Carmy's not sure when they started leaning in so close to each other. He's looking at their wet eyelashes with startling clarity. “You did all you could.”
“You don't know that.” Their words are so soft-spoken, but it still catches him off guard. “You don't know what happened.”
“You—” Irritation prickles inside him, his instincts itching to snap back, but he doesn't. He sees himself in them, and he holds back. “You're right. I don't know what happened. But I know you.” The shock is on their face as clear as day. “At least, I think I do.”
“I want to think you do, too,” they whisper. “But this—this messy bullshit is also me. I wish it wasn't. I wish you didn't have to see all this. I…don't want you to…think any less of me.”
“I don't think there's anything you could do to make me think less of you.” He doesn't resist dragging his thumb across a stray tear on their cheek. To his surprise, they lean into his touch. “Y'know when I almost burned down the apartment?”
“Oh my god.” They smile, and he feels their grinning cheek against his palm. “Yeah. Is it crazy to say I remember it fondly?”
“A little bit.” They laugh. It's quiet, but it's real. “Remember that talk we had after?”
“I do. Why?”
“You're allowed to mess up on onions,” he says softly. “It won't push me away.”
They stare at him for what feels like a long time. Their eyes refill with tears, but they don't spill. With a clammy hand, they shakily place their hand on top of his hand that's still cradling their wet cheek.
“Fucking onions,” they say finally with a wet laugh. Fresh tears drip onto his thumb, and he wipes them away again. As many times as it takes. “God damnit, Carmy.”
“No one deserves to have shitty parents, let alone ones that walk out on them.” He thumbs away more tears. “You being an imperfect person like everyone else doesn't justify that.”
“There must be something more I could've done,” they whisper. “Something I did wrong.”
“Maybe. But they're your parents, not the other way around. It's not your fault.”
“I know. I know that. I do. There just has to be a reason, because—fuck—the truth would just be too fucked up.”
“...And that is?”
It takes a long, still minute before they can get their words out.
“...It’s—it's that—” Their cries are verging on sobs, increasingly more staggered and uncontrollable. “It's that s-some kids—are just—some kids have parents that will never—never love—”
They can't finish. Their sobs have overtaken their whole body. Their body's hunched over the counter, curled into themself. Carmy can't think of a time where he's ever seen them crying so hard.
Without another word, Carmy pulls them into a hug.
They cry for a long time. Through it all, fleeting condolences pass Carmy by in his head, but they all feel too cheap, too meaningless. So all he does is hold them tight, letting them grab onto his shirt and soak the fabric on his shoulder. It's all he feels he can really do.
After a while, the tide subsides. He feels them wilting in his arms, exhausted from sobbing so violently. He doesn't actually want to let them go, but their sniffling nose sounds like it's completely stopped up.
“I'm gonna get you some tissues, ok?” He says quietly. They make a quiet noise of acknowledgement, and they pull back. He snatches up a box of tissues from the coffee table. He places it in front of them before grabbing them a glass of water.
“Thank you,” they mumble, voice scratchy. Carmy stands and watches as they blow through several tissues. The water gets downed instantaneously.
“Better?”
“Yeah. A lot better.”
“Good.”
“...I think, deep down, I know I didn't deserve what happened. Or just having shitty parents in general.” They sigh. “It's just easier to think that I do. That I deserve it.”
“...Yeah.” That resonates with a part of him he's not quite ready to acknowledge. “You're one of the kindest people I've ever met,” he admits quietly. “If someone like you deserves a shitty hand in life, I'm fucked.”
“Carmy…” Their smile is small, but genuine. “Thank you. I want to be able to genuinely believe that, one day. I'm going to try.”
“I know. I get it.”
“I know you do.”
That makes both of them smile, even if it's bitter.
“Thanks for telling me. About everything.”
“No, thank you for listening. For just being there for me.” They prop their chin in their hands, their elbows resting on the counter. “Y'know, this past year, I've been trying to find a sense of joy in all this mess. Sometimes it just feels so far away, like…like any happiness is just impossible. But I think I've found it. Rather, I've already found it.”
“Yeah?” Carmy looks at them expectantly, but he never expected this—
“I found you,” they tell him.
“...” He immediately fixes his shocked expression. He's at a loss for words.
Me?
“I never found a chance to mention it, but…my parents are the reason I decided to live with you. That's why I wanted to be your roommate, even though we were strangers.” They shrug shyly. “My lease was up on my last place. I was gonna go home, but then all that stuff happened at the last minute, and…yeah. I needed to find a place to live.”
“Seriously?” They just nod. “Damn. Uh…Yeah, that's fucking crazy. I had no idea.”
“At the time, I was miserable. I kept thinking to myself, ‘I can't believe how shitty this situation is!’ Don't get me wrong, it was fucking awful, but…it led me to you, so…it wasn't really all that bad, in the end. I got lucky.”
Fucking hell, he thinks to himself. Fuck.
“If you hadn't roomed with me, I wouldn't have been able to come back home for my brother's restaurant,” he says, mostly because he's so embarrassed that he swears his whole body's red at this point. Don't think about it. Don't think about it. “I think I'm the lucky one.”
“Can't we both be lucky?”
“I guess we can. Just doesn't seem very realistic.”
“Little too late to say that. It's already real.”
“...There's no other shoe?”
“Not that I know of. I think the other shoe's already dropped for us a while ago. Surely there's no other shoes left?”
“I hope not. I don't know if I could take another one.”
“Me neither.”
“...”
“...”
“Do you…want to eat your cake now?”
“Fuck, oh my god—I completely forgot! Yes!”
Just as Carmy planned, the flavors go perfectly together. Even though he knew it was going to be delicious, when he takes the first bite of the cake, relief washes over him. They seem to be overjoyed, inhaling the cake at dangerous speeds.
“You're gonna hurt yourself if you eat that fast,” he observes, both amused and concerned.
“Can't talk. Need to eat this.” That makes him laugh so abruptly he nearly gets cake up his nose. “This is the best birthday cake I've ever had, both visually and taste-wise.”
“I'm glad. Like I said, I'm not really a baker, but…I make an alright cake.”
“You make a fantastic cake.” They’ve got a bit of frosting on the corner of their mouth. “It doesn't get much better than this—eating a cake made by you.”
“Because I'm a chef, you mean?”
“No, not that. Not just that, anyway,” they amend with a cheeky grin. “Because you're my best friend.”
You're my best friend.
…
I'm their best friend, he repeats to himself. I'm their best friend.
He thinks about crying. He won't cry, but he thinks about it.
“Oh,” he replies intelligently. “...Really?”
“Y-Yeah. Unless, uh, you don't—”
“You're my best friend too,” he blurts out, and the anxiety on their face fades away into a relieved, beautiful smile.
“Thank god. That would've been pretty awkward if you didn't…” They shake their head.
“I've never been anyone's best friend before,” he confesses.
“Seriously?” They recover from the shock quickly. “Lucky me, then.”
“I thought you established we were both the lucky ones.”
“Oh, right.” They chuckle. “Lucky both of us, then.”
Carmy thought that life would always be the same. He thought that he was fated to a routine of nausea and nightmares, never quite close enough to reach a rest point. He thought that he was okay with it being his fate, because he never knew anything else.
He thought that loneliness, cigarettes, and memories would be enough, because it always stays the same. Nothing ever changes.
Until them.
He thought he had outgrown happiness, that his body had grown accustomed to living without it. That there was no longer space in his heart to withstand the weight of joy. But as he sits here with his roommate, chatting and laughing over a cake he made for them, he finds that's not true.
His capacity for happiness had never left. It had been there all along.
And with that, something in him lets go.
Carmy sees it all at once. It starts from the beginning—he sees the first day he met them, an initially hesitant meeting gone surprisingly well. He sees the first time the two of them smoked together, deliriously laughing through shared smoke. He sees them in the mornings, messy hair and wrinkled t-shirts. He sees them in nothing but an apron. He sees them in tight black clothes that leave little to the imagination. He sees them laughing at a joke that he didn’t think was all that funny.
He sees them in his dreams, red tomato puree bleeding from their gums. He sees them holding his trembling hands in theirs, soothing him back down from the storm in his hand. He sees them comforting him through his tears. He sees them sobbing, hot tears on their cheek and his hand. He sees them heaving into the toilet, whispering that they want to know him. He sees himself, embracing them tightly in his arms.
He sees it all. He knows that he can't avoid it anymore.
Carmy is completely, undeniably in love with them, and there is absolutely nothing that he can do to make that realization disappear.
…Some things, he understands, refuse to stay the same.
~
@zorrasucia @carmenberzattosgf @carmenbrzatto @thehouseofevangelista
#carmy berzatto#carmen berzatto#carmy berzatto x reader#carmen berzatto x reader#the bear#jeremy allen white#carmen berzatto x you#carmy berzatto x you#the bear fanfiction#carmy berzatto imagines#carmy the bear#the bear fx#my fics#alexithymia fic#GOD. IT'S FINALLY HERE. THIS ONE'S A BEAST.#ch 6 is gonna be the climax..... it's gonna happen yall. it's finally here. hahahaha#anyway this one took so long to write because it was so revealing for me... as i'm sure yall have guessed. sigh.
88 notes
·
View notes
Text
I've been seeing some....odd takes about the Watcher situation, and as a huge fan of Puppet History, I have really only one thing to say about it:
Worth it.
If you're really struggling financially to keep up the production, to the point that you're making the rash decision of starting from the ground up on an entirely new platform with no consumer rapport, why bring back a series that is, by its very premise, exorbitantly expensive?
The extra $6 a subscriber that they were banking on (Which, let's be real, even with their "Everyone can afford it" attitude, they had to have known that not all 3 million subscribers would have paid for it) isn't going to the art. It isn't paying for the studio or the employees or the existing Watcher content or brand.
The extra money is so that Steven Lim can afford to bring back an already costly show at a higher production value than the original Buzzfeed production, which was already needlessly expensive to begin with. Whatever's left over might go to Watcher.
Additionally, I think of all the Buzzfeed originals to revive, Worth it has to be the most tone deaf in this economic climate. A large big mac meal at your standard McDonald's drive through is $9.19. Federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. It is no longer entertaining to watch people spend money you could never dream of having on a Michelin star restaurant. It is even less entertaining when you're the one funding it.
I agree that Watcher should be fairly compensated for the content they produce. I agree that something probably needed to change in the business model to help bring in revenue. Hell, I don't even disagree with charging fans something for new and upcoming content that we've previously received for free.
But if this was really about them hurting to keep their company afloat amid rising production costs, they would not be advertising a new series where the cost that we as the consumer do actually get to see onscreen is the equivalent of (this is specifically taken from Buzzfeed's "Worth it: $4 burger vs $777 burger video", where the estimated cost of the food alone is $2,397. Not including tips to waitstaff, other items purchased, and assuming they did not feed Shane. Also not adjusted for current inflation or price gouging) 260 large big mac meals at McDonald's.
109 notes
·
View notes
Video
youtube
The Biggest Economic Lies We’re Told
In America, it’s expensive just to be alive.
And with inflation being driven by price gouging corporations, it’s only getting more expensive for regular Americans who don’t have any more money to spend.
Just look at how Big Oil is raking it in while you pay through the nose at the pump.
That’s on top of the average price of a new non-luxury car — which is now over $44,000. Even accounting for inflation, this is way higher than the average cost when I bought my first car — it’s probably in a museum by now.
Even worse, the median price for a house is now over $440,000. Compare that to 1972, when it was under $200,000.
Work a full-time minimum wage job? You won’t be able to afford rent on a one-bedroom apartment just about anywhere in the U.S.
And when you get back after a long day of work, you’ll likely be met with bills up the wazoo for doctor visits, student loans, and utilities.
So what’s left of a paycheck after basic living expenses? Not much.
You can only reduce spending on food, housing, and other basic necessities so much. Want to try covering the rest of your monthly costs with a credit card? Well now that’s more expensive too, with the Fed continuing to hike interest rates.
All of this comes back to how we measure a successful economy.
What good are more jobs if those jobs barely pay enough to live on?
Over one-third of full time jobs don’t pay enough to cover a basic family budget.
And what good are lots of jobs if they cause so much stress and take up so much time that our lives are miserable?
And don’t tell me a good economy is measured by a roaring stock market if the richest 10 percent of Americans own more than 80 percent of it.
And what good is a large Gross Domestic Product if more and more of the total economy is going to the richest one-tenth of one percent?
What good is economic growth if the way we grow depends on fossil fuels that cause a climate crisis?
These standard measures – jobs, the stock market, the GDP – don’t show how our economy is really doing, who is doing well, or the quality of our lives.
People who sit at their kitchen tables at night wondering how they’re going to pay the bills don’t say to themselves
“Well, at least corporate profits are at record levels.”
In fact, corporations have record profits and CEOs are paid so much because they’re squeezing more output from workers but paying lower wages. Over the past 40 years, productivity has grown 3.5x as fast as hourly pay.
At the same time, corporations are driving up the costs of everyday items people need.
Because corporations are monopolizing their markets, they don’t have to worry about competitors. A few giant corporations can easily coordinate price hikes and enjoy bigger profits.
Just four firms control 85% of all beef, 66% of all pork, and 54% of all poultry production.
Firms like Tyson have seen their profit margins skyrocket as they jack up prices higher than their costs — forcing consumers who are already stretched thin to pay even more.
It’s not just meat. Weak antitrust enforcement has allowed companies to become powerful enough to raise their prices across the entire food industry.
It’s the same story with household goods. Giant companies like Procter & Gamble blame their price hikes on increased costs – but their profit margins have soared to 25%. Hello?
They care more about their bottom line than your bottom, that’s for sure.
Meanwhile, parents – and even grandparents like me – are STILL struggling to feed their babies because of a national formula shortage. Why? Largely because the three companies who control the entire formula industry would rather pump money into stock buybacks than quality control at their factories.
Traditionally, our economy’s health is measured by the unemployment rate. Job growth. The stock market. Overall economic growth. But these don’t reflect the everyday, “kitchen table economics” that affect our lives the most.
These measures don’t show the real economy.
Instead of looking just at the number of jobs, we need to look at the income earned from those jobs. And not the average income.
People at the top always bring up the average.
If Jeff Bezos walked into a bar with 140 other people, the average wealth of each person would be over a billion dollars.
No, look at the median income – half above, half below.
And make sure it accounts for inflation – real purchasing power.
Over the last few decades, the real median income has barely budged. This isn’t economic success.
It's economic failure, with a capital F.
And instead of looking at the stock market or the GDP we need to look at who owns what – where the wealth really is.
Over the last forty years, wealth has concentrated more and more at the very top. Look at this;
This is a problem, folks. Because with wealth comes political power.
Forget trickle-down economics. It’s trickle on.
And instead of looking just at economic growth, we also need to look at what that growth is costing us – subtract the costs of the climate crisis, the costs of bad health, the costs of no paid leave, and all the stresses on our lives that economic growth is demanding.
We need to look at the quality of our lives – all our lives. How many of us are adequately housed and clothed and fed. How many of our kids are getting a good education. How many of us live in safety – or in fear.
You want to measure economic success? Go to the kitchen tables of America.
405 notes
·
View notes
Text
The US cattle industry is at an all time low. It's a result of things like extreme drought, beef cost rising, and inflation. Cattle prices are at an all time high, which drives the price of beef.
But this isn't necessarily a good thing for ranchers.
This just means the 4 large corporations who control 85 percent of the US beef market, 2 of them Brazilian owned, will import meat from other countries where they can source it cheaper. And because of our own laws, if it is repackaged in any way, it can be labeled product of the USA.
This is especially unsettling for ground beef that can come from multiple countries, from different ages, and different breeds of older cows that any sort of untraceable diet. That shrimp can be frozen for who knows how long and imported in droves, then thawed and mixed in a large vat in a large processing plant with literally hundreds of different DNA samples landing in 1 pound of ground beef.
Importing and exporting is not the problem. Americans like their hamburger, but not their heart. Traditional export markets are good for ranchers to get a premium for the unusual cuts that are more widely desired in foreign markets. But the American consumer deserves to know where their meat comes from and how it was raised. And there is an answer.
Buy directly from a rancher in the USA. Find a ranch you can buy direct from locally or one who ships to your doorstep and start ordering now and trusting the source of the food you feed your family.”
67 notes
·
View notes
Text
So it turns out there's quite a few dead malls out in the Midwest. I'm thinking if I could get roughly $2.5 million, I could buy out a mall, then convert it to serve its original purpose with affordable housing with absolute minimal government involvement. I get my agreed upon rent (tbd based on location, likely half the median) and pay back my investors in full plus a 25% additional ROI to get full rights to the land adjusted for inflation. And with most malls having fuckhuge lots, maybe make part of it just for more private tiny homes with included solar arrays and maintenance in exchange for a higher rate. Single folks and childless couples would have enough space to live comfortably, and I'd end up making enough to maintain the building, plus there'd still be a food court, which would save residents money on delivery, as well as provide additional rent made affordable for businesses just starting up with decent products.
Basically a covenant community with no restrictions on anything but fucking with other people's property and the law imposed by the state if you're caught doing something you "shouldn't" be. And ofc I'd live there myself to ensure it's maintenance and that nobody breaks the rules in their lease.
Housing gets a little cheaper and I make a little profit after maintenance and upkeep. It's an actual win win. The only people that might lose are the landlords that refuse to lower their own rent, but that's their business and not mine.
Hell, maybe someday I could get permits to expand the mall and create more low cost housing, the new units would need a slightly higher price to make up the cost, but it's far from impossible to do so long as it's stable income.
And I'm putting this out there in a tumblr post in case anyone has got someone that would invest in this sort of project that wants to make a big difference in a community and a little extra cash.
57 notes
·
View notes
Text
WASHINGTON -- Inflation has changed the way many Americans shop. Now, those changes in consumer habits are helping bring down inflation.
Fed up with prices that remain about 19%, on average, above where they were before the pandemic, consumers are fighting back. In grocery stores, they're shifting away from name brands to store-brand items, switching to discount stores or simply buying fewer items like snacks or gourmet foods.
More Americans are buying used cars, too, rather than new, forcing some dealers to provide discounts on new cars again. But the growing consumer pushback to what critics condemn as price-gouging has been most evident with food as well as with consumer goods like paper towels and napkins.
In recent months, consumer resistance has led large food companies to respond by sharply slowing their price increases from the peaks of the past three years. This doesn't mean grocery prices will fall back to their levels of a few years ago, though with some items, including eggs, apples and milk, prices are below their peaks. But the milder increases in food prices should help further cool overall inflation, which is down sharply from a peak of 9.1% in 2022 to 3.1%.
Public frustration with prices has become a central issue in President Joe Biden’s bid for re-election. Polls show that despite the dramatic decline in inflation, many consumers are unhappy that prices remain so much higher than they were before inflation began accelerating in 2021.
Biden has echoed the criticism of many left-leaning economists that corporations jacked up their prices more than was needed to cover their own higher costs, allowing themselves to boost their profits. The White House has also attacked “shrinkflation,” whereby a company, rather than raising the price of a product, instead shrinks the amount inside the package. In a video released on Super Bowl Sunday, Biden denounced shrinkflation as a “rip-off.”
Consumer pushback against high prices suggests to many economists that inflation should further ease. That would make this bout of inflation markedly different from the debilitating price spikes of the 1970s and early 1980s, which took longer to defeat. When high inflation persists, consumers often develop an inflationary psychology: Ever-rising prices lead them to accelerate their purchases before costs rise further, a trend that can itself perpetuate inflation.
“That was the fear — that everybody would tolerate higher prices,” said Gregory Daco, chief economist at EY, a consulting firm, who notes that it hasn't happened. “I don't think we've moved into a high inflation regime.”
Instead, this time many consumers have reacted like Stuart Dryden, a commercial underwriter at a bank who lives in Arlington, Virginia. On a recent trip to his regular grocery store, Dryden, 37, pointed out big price disparities between Kraft Heinz-branded products and their store-label competitors, which he now favors.
Dryden, for example, loves cream cheese and bagels. A 12-ounce tub of Kraft's Philadelphia cream cheese costs $6.69. The store brand, he noted, is just $3.19.
A 24-pack of Kraft single cheese slices is $7.69; the store label, $2.99. And a 32-ounce Heinz ketchup bottle is $6.29, while the alternative is just $1.69. Similar gaps existed with mac-and-cheese and shredded cheese products.
“Just those five products together already cost nearly $30,” Dryden said. The alternatives were less than half that, he calculated, at about $13.
“I’ve been trying private-label options, and the quality is the same and it’s almost a no-brainer to switch from the products I used to buy a ton of to just the private label," Dryden said.
Alex Abraham, a spokesman for Kraft Heinz, said that its costs rose 3% in the final three months of last year but that the company raised its own prices only 1%.
“We are doing everything possible to find efficiencies in our factories and other parts of our business to offset and mitigate further price increases,” Abraham said.
Last week, Kraft Heinz said sales fell in the final three months of last year as more consumers traded down to cheaper brands.
Dryden has taken other steps to save money: A year ago, he moved into a new apartment after his previous landlord jacked up his rent by about 50%. His former apartment had been next to a relatively pricey grocery store, Whole Foods. Now, he shops at a nearby Amazon Fresh and has started visiting the discount grocer Aldi every couple of weeks.
Samuel Rines, an investment strategist at Corbu, says that PepsiCo, Kimberly-Clark, Procter & Gamble and many other consumer food and packaged goods companies exploited the rise in input costs stemming from supply-chain disruptions and Russia's invasion of Ukraine to dramatically raise their prices — and increase their profits — in 2021 and 2022.
A contributing factor was that millions of Americans enjoyed solid wage gains and received stimulus checks and other government aid, making it easier for them to pay the higher prices.
Still, some decried the phenomenon as “greedflation." And in a March 2023 research paper, the economist Isabella Weber at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, referred to it as “seller's inflation.”
Yet beginning late last year, many of the same companies discovered that the strategy was no longer working. Most consumers have now long since spent the savings they built up during the pandemic.
Lower-income consumers, in particular, are running up credit card debt and falling behind on their payments. Americans overall are spending more cautiously. Daco notes that overall sales during the holiday shopping season were up just 4% — and most of it reflected higher prices rather than consumers actually buying more things.
As an example, Rines points to Unilever, which makes, among other items, Hellman's mayonnaise, Ben & Jerry's ice cream and Dove soaps. Unilever jacked up its prices 13.3% on average across its brands in 2022. Its sales volume fell 3.6% that year. In response, it raised prices just 2.8% last year; sales rose 1.8%.
“We're beginning to see the consumer no longer willing to take the higher pricing,” Rines said. “So companies were beginning to get a little bit more skeptical of their ability to just have price be the driver of their revenues. They had to have those volumes come back, and the consumer wasn’t reacting in a way that they were pleased with.”
Unilever itself recently attributed poor sales performance in Europe to “share losses to private labels.”
Other businesses have noticed, too. After their sales fell in the final three months of last year, PepsiCo executives signaled that this year they would rein in price increases and focus more on boosting sales.
“In 2024, we see ... normalization of the cost, normalization of inflation,” CEO Ramon Laguarta said. “So we see everything trending back to our long-term” pricing trends.
Jeffrey Harmening, CEO of General Mills, which makes Cheerios, Chex Cereal, Progresso soups and dozens of other brands, has acknowledged that his customers are increasingly seeking bargains.
And McDonald's executives have said that consumers with incomes below $45,000 are visiting less and spending less when they do visit and say the company plans to highlight its lower-priced items.
“Consumers are more wary — and weary — of pricing, and we’re going to continue to be consumer-led in our pricing decisions,” Ian Borden, the company's chief financial officer, told investors.
Officials at the Federal Reserve, the nation's primary inflation-fighting institution, have cited consumers' growing reluctance to pay high prices as a key reason why they expect inflation to fall steadily back to their 2% annual target.
“Firms are telling us that price sensitivity is very much higher now,” Mary Daly, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and a member of the Fed's interest-rate setting committee, said last week. “Consumers don't want to purchase unless they're seeing a 10% discount. ... This is a serious improvement in the role that consumers play in bridling inflation.”
Surveys by the Fed's regional banks have found that companies across all industries expect to impose smaller price increases this year. The New York Fed says companies in its region plan to raise prices an average of about 3% this year, down from about 5% in 2023 and as much as 7% to 9% in 2022.
Such trends suggest that companies were well on their way to slowing their price hikes before Biden's most recent attacks on price gouging.
Claudia Sahm, founder of SAHM Consulting and a former Fed economist, said, “consumers are more powerful than President Biden.”
33 notes
·
View notes
Text
The Eintykara are beloved insects, due to their ties to Ichor and the wondrous miren they create. They take flesh and fluids to make their nests, and slowly convert it to golden miren and malleable corpse wax. These products have a wide range of use, and many people clamor to get their hands on them, but sadly, there is often not enough to go around. Eintykara hives take a lot of resources to construct and they require a somewhat steady supply of flesh and fluid to keep churning out the goods. Even then, it takes a long time for a sizeable nest to form and the constant demand means that supply is often quick to run out. Add to that the value of this product, and what people would do to get their hands on it, and you will see why very few outside of the Church can maintain an Eintykara hive. The Church of Divine Wealth has entire wings and temples dedicated to these golden insects, built and kept safe for decades, if not centuries. They have the space, the resources and the security to ensure everything remains perfect. But most of their miren and corpse wax is used internally, never leaving the halls of the Church, while what remains is "given" to certain supporters who are very charitable with their "donations." So common folk struggle to get a decent amount of miren or corpse wax, and are often forced to use shoddier imitations or lesser versions, like ear wax. Tomb Harvesters can offer some at the right price, but these costs are often greatly inflated and the miren that comes from it is tainted with anguish. So many villages outside of the Church's reach try to create their own source, and often they fail. But sometimes, nature is able to provide. Sometimes the people may witness a miracle, as the Eintykara show why they are the insects bound to Ichor and life.
The creation of Bugonia is one whose process is so complicated and so rife with failure that it is seen more as a miracle than an act. Some may try a hundred times and fail, while another may only do it once and succeed. Some folk simply prefer to leave the "ingredients" of the process out and hope that nature and random chance will grant them incredible luck. In most cases, it calls for cow, who is to be sacrificed in a brutal fashion and buried or locked away. Time and various other offerings are required, and if all goes well, a species of Eintykara will find this corpse and breathe life into it. Rather than taking bits of this dead flesh back to a hive, they turn this carcass into a living hive, bringing it back from the dead to serve as home and protector. What emerges from the process of Bugonia is a rotted beast filled with bug, wax and miren. Given new life, it will seemingly return to its past of grazing and living as a simple cow, though its diet now leans more omnivorous. What it eats is what fuels the Eintykara hive within, and the busy little bugs quickly convert bloody cud into glorious wax and miren. While fools would call it an abomination, many praise this golden dripping bull and see it as a bringer of fortune and plenty.
Any village would sacrifice nearly anything to have a Bugonia bull amongst their livestock, as they are walking producers of miren and corpse wax. These animals are given preferential treatment and are guarded fiercely. Thankfully, the living hives are quite calm and peaceful as long as the food is flowing, content to act like any other cow. But if the hives are left to starve, they will have their host grow violent and voracious, goring and devouring anything to fuel their needs. Owners of Bugonia can train these animals if given enough time and food, and eventually they will learn who to trust and who to kill. A creature like this is highly prized, and thieves will come in droves to nab a golden calf like this. Villagers will fight and so will the bull, using powerful horns and angry swarms to devastate any who dare threaten it. And those who perish to its horns and hooves will be fed to the beast, so that their sinful flesh may be purified and turned into that sweet golden miren.
The presence of a Bugonia bull can easily be noted by the wandering flight of Eintykara collecting food near farm fields and the buzzing, droning moo that comes from its rotted throat.
------------------------------------------------------------
"Bugonia"
Wow, this turned out way more detailed and complicated than I originally imagined, but bugonia is a perfect thing for the world of Fall of Ichor. So I made it for that, and also because I am losing ground on the bugonia front! I once had two out of six, and now I am dumped down to only one?! Impossible! Unacceptable! I must up my game, I must make more bugonia! Go my minions, help me ruin Google search even more! I shall have it all!
#bugonia#bug#bugs#insect#insects#bee#cow#bull#infested#body horror#art#drawing#fall of ichor#undead#milk and honey anyone?
27 notes
·
View notes
Text
We have been seeing numerous stories in the media about how people support Donald Trump because he did such a great job with the economy. Obviously, people can believe whatever they want about the world, but it is worth reminding people what the world actually looked like when Trump left office (kicking and screaming) and Biden stepped into the White House.
Trump’s Legacy: Mass Unemployment
The economy had largely shut down in the spring of 2020 because of the pandemic. It was still very far from fully reopening at the point of the transition.
In January of 2021, the unemployment rate was 6.4 percent, up from 3.5 percent before the pandemic hit at the start of the year. A more striking figure than the unemployment rate was the employment rate, the percentage of the population that was working. This had fallen from 61.1 percent to 57.4 percent, a level that was lower than the low point of the Great Recession.
The number of people employed in January of 2021 was nearly 8 million people below what it had been before the pandemic. We see the same story if we look at the measure of jobs in the Bureau of Labor Statistics establishment survey. The number of jobs was down by more than 9.4 million from the pre-pandemic level.
We were also not on a clear path toward regaining these jobs rapidly. The economy actually lost 268,000 jobs in December of 2020. The average rate of job creation in the last three months of the Trump administration was just 163,000.
What the World Looked Like When Donald Trump Left Office
In the fourth quarter of 2020 the economy was still being shaped in a very big way by the pandemic. Most of the closures mandated at the start of the pandemic had been lifted, but most people were not conducting their lives as if the pandemic had gone away. We can see this very clearly in the consumption data.
Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis and author’s calculations.
The figure above shows the falloff in consumption between the fourth quarter of 2019 and the fourth quarter of 2020 in some of the areas hardest hit by the pandemic. While overall consumption was down just 0.8 percent, there has been an enormous shift from services to goods.
Inflation-adjusted spending at restaurants was down by 21.5 percent, and much of this spending went for picking up food rather than sit-down meals. Spending at bars was down 47.7 percent. Spending at hotels and motels was down by 43.8 percent as people had hugely cut back travel. Air travel was down 52.4 percent.
Spending on football games, baseball games, and sports events was down by 68.3 percent. Spending on live concerts and other entertainment was down a bit less, at 67.4 percent. And movie going was down 92.7 percent.
The Story of Cheap Gas
Donald Trump and his supporters have often boasted about the cheap gas we had when he was in office. This is true. Gas prices did fall below $2.00 a gallon in the spring of 2020 when the economy was largely shut down, although they had risen above $2.30 a gallon by the time Trump left office. The cause of low prices was hardly a secret, demand in the U.S. and around the world had collapsed. In the fourth quarter of 2020 gas consumption was still 12.5 percent below where it had been before the pandemic.
In fact, gas prices likely would have been even lower in this period if not for Trump’s actions, which he boasted about at the time. Trump claimed to have worked a deal with Russia and OPEC to slash production and keep gas prices from falling further. The sharp cutbacks in production were a major factor in the high prices when the economy began to normalize after President Biden came into office since oil production cannot be instantly restarted.
The End of the Trump Economy Was a Sad Story
Donald Trump handed President Biden an incredibly damaged economy at the start of 2021. People can rightfully say that the problems were due to the pandemic, not Trump’s mismanagement, but the impact of the pandemic did not end on January 21. The problems associated with the pandemic were the main reason the United States, like every other wealthy country, suffered a major bout of inflation in 2021 and 2022.
It is often said that people don’t care about causes, they just care about results. This is entirely plausible, but the results in the last year of the Trump administration were truly horrible by almost any measure.
It may be the case that people are more willing to forgive Trump for the damage the pandemic did to the economy than Biden, but that is not an explanation based on the reality in people’s lives, or “lived experience” to use the fashionable term.
That would mean that for some reason people recognize and forgive Trump for the difficult circumstances he faced as a result of the pandemic, but they don’t with Biden. It would be worth asking why that could be the case.
27 notes
·
View notes
Text
🇺🇳🇵🇸 🚨 UNITED NATIONS WORLD FOOD PROGRAMME WARNS GAZANS FACE IMMEDIATE STARVATION
The United Nations' World Food Programme warned Friday that Palestinian civilians living in the Gaza Strip face immediate starvation and dehydration as the Israeli Occupation continues operations targeting Gaza.
The comments come as part of a United Nations World Food Programme press conference held on Friday morning.
"Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are becoming more desperate everyday in the search for bread and other essential foods," World Food Programme Senior Spokesperson for the Middle East, North Africa and Eastern Europe, Abeer Etefa said.
Etefa told the press conference, "We are already starting to see cases of dehydration and malnutrition which is increasing rapidly and by the day. So Gaza actually risks sliding into hunger heavily without fuel and a rapid surge in food supplies."
According to Etefa, only 10% of necessary food supplies are entering the Gaza Strip at this time, and she told the conference that Gaza is facing a major food gap.
"So 2.2 million people, that's nearly the entire population of Gaza are now in need of food assistance," the spokesperson warned.
"People are barely able to have a meal a day. Food options are limited to canned food, if it is actually available, bread is a rare luxury and aid trucks are trickling into Gaza, but even the small amounts of food and water that make it over the border are barely able to be transported to where it needs to go as roads have been damaged or fuel is in very short supply."
Etefa went on to say that the existing food systems inside the besieged Gaza Strip are collapsing and food production has come to a complete halt since the events of October 7th.
"Fisherman cannot access the sea, Farmers cannot reach their farms, and the last bakery that the World Food Programme has been working with has closed its doors because of the shortage of fuel," Etefa explained.
"Shops have run out of food supplies, the bakeries are unable to operate because of the fuel, shortage of clean water or because they have sustained damage, and the last mill that was also operating to make... the wheat flour that's needed for baking bread has been hit [in an Israeli strike] and has stopped operating."
Etefa goes on to explain how all these problems have led to bread shortages, which she called the "last staple food for people in Gaza" and pointed to the lack of electricity supply as one of the main culprits for the desperation of the situation.
Etefa goes on to explain how perishable food items are not available, nor are they really an option due to the lack of electricity and fuel which prevents refrigeration.
According to Etefa, at the beginning of the conflict, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), working alongside its partner agency, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), partnered with 23 bakeries at the start of the conflict and have been providing bread for over 200'000 Gazans every morning.
"This is now over," Etefa stated plainly, "because all of the 23 bakeries are now out of service."
According to the spokesperson, at the start of the war there had been over 130 bakeries in Gaza, with more than 11 having been targeted in Israeli Occupation strikes, including one which had been contracted by the WFP, while the rest are effectively closed due to shortages of fuel.
"In general, 25% of the shops in Gaza, those ones that have been contracted by WFP remain open and others have run out of essential food items," the spokesperson explained.
"But even the ones that remain open have very limited supplies in the stores, the local markets have shut down completely, small quantities of food can be found, but they are being sold at alarmingly inflated prices and are of little use without fuel and cooking gas."
This means that most Palestinians living in Gaza are surviving on less than one meal a day, and the lucky ones may have a meal that includes canned food, however, many people have resorted to consuming raw onions and eggplants, as well as other foods that are normally cooked.
Etafa explains how it is impossible for the light trickle of Humanitarian Aid being allowed to enter Gaza by the occupation to make up for the complete halt of commercial operations in the Gaza Strip.
Etefa mentioned that since October 21st, the first day the Occupation allowed aid through the Raffah border crossing, 1'129 trucks loaded with aid have been allowed into Gaza.
However, of those 1'129 trucks carrying aid, only 147 of them were carrying food supplies.
"The volume remains very inadequate," Etefa told the audience.
According to the WFP spokesperson, since the Raffah border crossing was opened for emergency aid, more than 400 trucks were crossing into Gaza each day. However, now that number has been reduced to closer to 100 per day, and of those 100 trucks, only an estimated 10% contain food imports.
"That means that the food that has entered Gaza so far is only enough to meet 7% of the people's daily minimum of the caloric needs," Spokesperson Etefa explained.
"With winter fast approaching and the unsafe and overcrowded shelters, the lack of clean water, people are facing the immediate possibility of starvation," a stunning comment from the spokesperson.
According to WFP Spokesperson Abeer Etefa, aid has so far been delivered to around 764'000 people in Gaza and the West Bank, including food parcels and electronic vouchers, and assisted another 500'000 staying in UN shelters with bread, canned tuna fish, and date bars.
Another 520'000 people were provided with electronic vouchers at the beginning of the crisis, however the vouchers have become worthless as food, water and fuel have virtually disappeared over the last week and nothing remains in the shops for civilians to purchase.
Though, according to Etefa, the World Food Programme intends on scaling up operations in Gaza in the coming days with a goal of reaching 1 million people with aid by December.
However, for that to happen, the Israeli Occupation would have to allow many more trucks with Humanitarian Aid through the Raffah border crossing and other areas of access to Gaza.
"We need more than just one crossing point," Etefa told the audience.
"We need the safe access of Humanitarian Aid workers to distribute assistance and for the civilians to have safe access to the assistance, fuel for trucks, fuel for bakeries; so that we can continue to provide this staple food commodity and to be operational and, of course, connectivity to facilitate delivery of assistance, and the ability to rotate staff in and out of Gaza so that we can beef up our capacity on the ground and give relied to the people who have been working for the last few weeks tirelessly."
In a blunt assessment of the situation, Etefa said, "There is no way to meet the current hunger needs with the current situation."
"The collapse of food supply chains is catastrophic, it's a catastrophic turning point in an already very bad situation," Etefa concludes.
"Gaza was not an easy place to live before the 7th of October, and if the situation was difficult before this conflict, it's now disastrous."
#source
@WorkerSolidarityNews
#gaza#gaza strip#gaza news#gaza war#gaza update#palestine#palestine news#palestine war#palestine update#united nations#world food programme#israel#israel news#israeli war crimes#war crimes#crimes against humanity#war#news#politics#geopolitics#war news#war update#world news#global news#international news#breaking news#current events#wars#UN#us news
45 notes
·
View notes
Text
“This inflation shit is bullshit. Companies are raising prices because they can”
Well, yes, that is true. Because the market is organized in such a way that any company that doesn’t ruthlessly exploit every opportunity for profit has all their shares dropped. So companies that are not cartoon level evil literally can not exist. The market is designed to have this outcome.
ALSO, the market creates weirdly funky and specific dynamics that we tend to overlook. As an example, let’s look at food prices in the Netherlands:
For two decades now, several big supermarket chains have been ruthlessly out competing each other, hoping to win market dominance. They have often sold food items below cost-value, accepting a loss now because they hope that once they’ve beaten their competition they’ll be filthy rich.
To win this price war, they’ve put pressure on suppliers to sell goods as cheaply as possible. Suppliers have in turn put pressure on producers to sell goods as cheaply as possible. Famously, this led to farmers having to sell their milk for a price lower than the production cost of milk, or throw the milk away because no supplier would buy it.
The reason prices could be dictated from the top in this way was because there was an abundance of goods and a limited demand. So supermarkets could tell suppliers ‘sell to me for a ridiculously low price or I’ll buy from someone else’ and suppliers could tell farmers ‘sell to me for a ridiculously low price or I’ll buy from someone else’. The true costs of production be damned.
Now there are some shortages. Not massive ones, but for the first time supermarkets have trouble finding suppliers for some basic goods and suppliers have trouble finding producers. Result? After decades of ‘sell to me for a ridiculously low price or I’ll buy from someone else’ every link in the process flips to ‘buy from me for a high price or I’ll sell to someone else’. This creates a massive price correction that was a long time in the making.
Wages and benefits aren’t build around these much higher food prices, so suddenly a lot of people can’t afford food.
This is one specific market, but the lesson here is: capitalism is always going to be doing this shit. Even if you fix one part of it, like banning sudden price hikes or setting fixed profit margins on essential goods, the market is going to be creating these sorts of bubbles that burst and create sudden big problems. This isn’t a greed problem. It’s a capitalism problem.
604 notes
·
View notes
Text
stumbled upon info on how jamie oliver is interested in making the food price inflation situation in UK worse and is a classist snob and wants everyone to hate chicken nuggets? while nuggies has issues in production it still is ultimately an effective use of unwanted chicken parts in a production line bruh
but what really gets me, what makes me wish nothing but the WORST and the SHITTIEST life on this man is this
youtube
why. why is his thai green curry so far off base, why is this man so arrogant and confident that he understands how to make it by taking one look at it, changed the recipe into inedible crap, and think he could just nail it on his first try
as a southeast asian, i want his blood.
56 notes
·
View notes
Last Seen Blogs
siriusleal
always know that, I don't know what I'm doing
wwwewsworld
Untitled
kingkwhystop
Kizzy K.🍫💕💦💍
qruvazarchi-blog
qruvazachi
