mundane austerity

My mother would like to have a functioning watch--for obvious reasons.

She owns two watches.  One has a broken band.  The other needs a new battery.

On the borders of this page you can see pictures of what used to be the nearest shopping center.  When i was a mere boy, it was relatively busy, and my mother would shop there regularly.  Then the stores all moved away.  Today the nearest grocery store is nearly two miles away.  It would probably not be healthy to walk there when the sun was shining.

The buildings in the pictures have now been demolished---to make way for what?  Not progress, I am sure....

My mother suggested that I might be able to replace the battery at the nearby X-Mart (what is the generic name for these stores?  In Central Europe, it was UK-originated "Tesco".....).......I actually recall that not so many years ago, she had been able to go there to have some kind of service done on her wrist-watch.

When I entered the store, I ignored the officially-FRIENDLY-greeter----a man who had disturbed me two years ago when I attempted to enter with a bag on my back------and proceeded to the jewelry counter.  There a woman seemed to be engaged in friendly informal social chatter with two acquaintances who were visiting her there.

I asked the woman for help.

She was kind enough, friendly enough to suggest that I could find batteries "over there", and she
gestured.

I more or less repeated my mother's suggestion----that they would be able to help me, etc.

Ahh, but they no longer do that.  She explained that she did not even have the tools needed to open
the back of the watch....And when I looked  "over there", there were no watch batteries.  At any rate, I didn't see them, and without opening the watch, I certainly could not be sure of the right size.

X-Mart is only five minutes by car from my parents' house.  The alternative suggestion was to drive fifteen or twenty minutes to a very congested part of El Paso where a well-known jeweler (in business for many years) had his business.  Alas, after investigation on the Internet, I learned that he had died two years ago, and, it would seem that his business ceased with his death.

What then?  My mother would like to have a functioning watch.  It seems that I must drive approximately 15 miles to the other side of town.....

Well, that's annoying.  It's also crazy given the fact of climate change.

There are many lessons to draw from this little story.  First, the facts about capitalism:  a store can make more money selling watches than selling watch batteries.  And, after all, the capitalist wants----above all----to increase his capital, and only secondarily to provide what people need.

But, this example is typical of the degeneration and destruction wrought in ordinary lives by the economic system.  My parents had an easier time of it when they were younger----not merely because they were younger, but because their neighborhood is increasingly bereft of necessary services.

After all, if you simply want to buy a battery for your watch, you are not asking for a luxury item!

What of the broken watch band?  Here, too, we see what it means to live in a capitalist society.  There is a store where my mother has twice purchased watch bands. But each time the band has quickly broken.  So, once again, to get something better, I must travel by car-----wearing out the car, destroying my nerves, wasting my time, and contributing to climate change.

I often recall the clear intention of the "communists" who used to run Bratislava.  There was at least some idea that each neighborhood should be, more-or-less, self-sufficient, with pharmacies, grocery stores, and a cultural center.    Why not have nurses resident in your neighborhood, instead of torturing them with hours spent driving from one side of the town to the other?  Why not have a convenient local grocery store?----within walkable distance?  Why not have nurses make regular visits to the homes of the elderly----say every two or three hours?  (As is the case in the Netherlands.....)  And imagine if that visiting nurse actually lived in your neighborhood......As opposed to the current situation:  A nurse must drive her car and visit X patients as if she were working in a factory........(And she will inevitably be risking her life on the so-called "freeway"......)

But all that is too much to ask of the world's greatest purveyor of destruction and cultural immiseration! (Do I exaggerate?  Is there really no alternative?  There are differences in other countries.  The USA way of thinking and living is really not yet universal.)