Why?

Not long ago a for sale ad appeared on the local buy, sale, trade page on Facebook, Baraga County Stuff for Sale (No Clothes) that kind of stood out. I tend to refer to the page as Baraga County Shit for Sale because it's like an Internet version of Tradio -- did you guys know local radio stations still do Tradio? The Iron River, Michigan, station calls its program "Telephone Time," but it's Tradio. The S.O. and I catch it occasionally when we're driving down to V.A. hospital in Iron Mountain. People call in looking to buy, sell, or trade some really strange stuff, including during gardening season actual shit (horse or cow manure)

But I digress. The ad that caught my eye was for candles made utilizing old bottles. I was immediately reminded of the tall prayer candles you find in the Mexican foods section of some supermarkets. There is, you will note, one significant difference. Instead of having a prayer to some saint or the Holy Mother printed on them, these candles are apparently hoping to party. I found myself thinking, wow, the person who crafted those really likes his or her vodka. I mean, who wants to advertise to the whole world they drink that much?

Little did I know I was about to stumble across something that was even more of a tribute to tippling. I belong to a quilters' group on Facebook. People post pictures of their various projects, share patterns, and talk about quilting. Did you know there's such a thing as a Crown Royal quilt? That's not the pattern -- it's the material. People make quilts from Crown Royal bags. If I hadn't seen multiple photos, I'd have thought the whole concept was a joke.

Because, again, wow. It's a lot of work to cut apart the bags, figure out placement, and then sew them back together into a quilt top. And not just any size quilt -- the favorite (going by the comments) is a queen size. That is not a small quilt. The Crown Royal quilters make the Grey Goose vodka candles person look like a piker in the future friend of Bill category. A dozen or so vodka bottles? Pshaw. That's nothing. How about a quilt top pieced from 160 -- yes, one hundred and sixty -- Crown Royal bags? The maker may not have a functioning liver by the time he or she is done, but by God he or she will sleep in style.

Sneetches, elites, and other tribal weirdness

I've been thinking about the bizarre tendency people have to separate themselves into groups, Us vs. Them. I saw a strange example recently in the RV group I'm part of on Facebook. People's minds can do some weird contortions in their efforts to differentiate themselves (the good guys, the elite, the people worth knowing) from the riff raff, the hoi polloi who aren't worthy of being associated with.

I already knew that the RV-ing world is full of ridiculous amounts of elitism and tribalism. The people with the high dollar Class As (the motor homes that resemble buses) are perceived as snobs by some other campers. I'm not sure why, other than the fact that it seems that many of the folks who buy brand new Class As tend to prefer camping at privately owned RV resorts rather than hanging out in state parks or doing dispersed camping in National Forests. But that's definitely not true for all of them -- when we've been campground hosts, there were always a few Class As around. Granted, most were not brand new Leviathans, but they were Class As.

There's also kind of a split in the Class C world between the folks who have the brand new equipment and obsess about keeping it looking like it just rolled off the dealer's lot ("OMG. My decals are fading!! What can I do?") and those folks who have older equipment and stopped worrying about waxing a long time ago. I cannot begin to fathom why anyone would want to wax an RV. . . but then I don't wax my car, and it's only a Focus.

There's the split between the RV owners who obsess about the interiors -- must make sure the flooring is perfect, have to cover the ugly wallpaper in the bathroom with glass tiles, must acquire lots of RV-themed knickknacks to clutter up the place and/or bounce off the walls when we hit some rough pavement -- and those owners who figure as long as it's clean and comfortable it doesn't need to look like a spread from House Beautiful.  They spend tons of time obsessing about decorating, finally hit the road, and then we're treated to posts about an alternator failing or tires blowing out.  Maybe if they thought less about how pretty the inside was and spent more time thinking about mechanical stuff, they wouldn't end up sitting by the side of the road waiting for a wrecker.

There are the RV owners who absolutely have to have full hookups (electric, water, sewer) before they'll "camp" anywhere and there are those who are sure it's not camping unless they're on a dispersed site in the middle of nowhere in a National Forest or on Bureau of Land Management land. You name it, and you've got one group that's totally for it and another group that thinks the opposite.

The weirdest example I've seen lately, though, of someone drawing a line between Us and Them was a dude who advised someone who was new to RV-ing to join an organization that operates RV "resorts" around the country. You pay for your membership and you get to camp at the properties that are affiliated with the organization/parent company/whatever. He laid it on thick about how by staying at these "exclusive" RV resorts you know you're safe because the riff raff like you find at state and national parks are kept out. You know, the resorts are gated and have private security. WTF?

The first bizarre part, of course, is that business of riff raff in state and national parks. If you're staying at a state-owned campground, you've paid for the privilege, and, depending on the campground, it may not have been a particularly cheap privilege. You're also limited as to how long you can linger in those campgrounds. No one in a state park is squatting there indefinitely. It's not an environment that is riff raff friendly. (FWIW, I am interpreting "riff raff" as low income, poor, possibly homeless.)

As for security, you know what you have at the privately owned resorts? Rent-a-cops, security guards whose training may have consisted solely of "drive around once an hour so visitors think we're doing something." I've known people who worked as security guards. The basic requirement for being hired was that they were still breathing and could stand upright. In contrast, if you stay at a public campground -- state or federal -- you're going to see commissioned law enforcement officers coming through on a regular basis. Real cops, not pretend ones, men and women who have had extensive training and actually know what they're doing.  When we camp hosted at a national park, we'd see a law enforcement ranger come through several times a day. They were a highly visible presence and a whole lot more intimidating than a rent-a-cop would have been. Why would anyone willingly delude themselves into believing that they were safer under the watchful eye of a mall cop when they could camp where there's real police?

Weird priorities

The Guppy resting for a night in Missouri last year.

Being a glutton for punishment, a few months ago I joined a Facebook group for owners of Class C motorhomes. Class Cs, for the uninitiated, are the ones built on a van chassis, e.g., a Ford E350, and have that bunk over the cab area. The Guppy is a Class C.

The S.O., incidentally, is convinced I joined the Class C group simply so I have an excuse to feel smugly smarter than the average bear on a regular basis. It is rather astounding just how many fools are out there who are willing to drop $100,000 or more on a brand new motorhome but can't figure out how to operate their automated steps or tell the difference between alternating and direct current. You know, if you're going to go into major debt to buy something, shouldn't you at least have some clue as to how its various systems work? Did you know there are people around who are afraid to change a flat tire? Anyone who's intimidated by the prospect of changing a flat or having to learn how to use a tire pressure gauge really shouldn't be driving a vehicle at all, let alone something as big and awkward as the typical motorhome. (There are so many discussions devoted to the topic of automatic tire monitoring systems that a person could start to believe it's a miracle we geezers managed to survive for decades without an electronic signal warning us when tire pressure was low.)

But, as usual, I'm wandering away from what I meant to talk about. Weird priorities. It is absolutely astounding just how many RV owners worry about the wax jobs on their traveling houses. Discussions of the best detergents, car waxes, buffing cloths, you name it, are perennial favorites for the group. If someone asks a serious question the response is likely to be crickets, but if you want to know about locating a car wash that can accommodate a motorhome? Holy wah. Suddenly hordes of people are crawling out of the proverbial woodwork with testimonials for their favorite apps. Which in itself is a holy wah moment: there are apparently a gazillion specialized apps out there that you can use to eat up memory on your phone just to help you find a car wash that has a truck wash bay. One lady was kind of freaking out because the plastic housing for her side mirrors had begun yellowing with age. Why? The mirrors are still there, and that's the part that counts.

And then there are the concerns about the peeling or fading decals. Just how much ego does a person have invested in their RV that they fret about it starting to look like maybe it's not brand new, that possibly it's put a few miles in on the road, or that (heaven forfend) the owners bought it (horrified whisper) used?  There was a post recently by someone who said she and her significant other purchased a 1995 motorhome through a local garage sale site last month. Okay, that's an RV that's 23 years old. It's not going to have the flashy paint jobs and decals popular on current models. It's going to look its age, although it the "before" photo it actually looked pretty good. Clean, no visible damage, just a dated style.

So what was basically the first thing they did with their garage sale bargain? Took it to a shop that specializes in wraps. You got it. They had a full wrap put on a 23-year old RV. It looks nice, I'll give them that, but, holy wah, if it can cost $3,000 to do a full wrap on a car, just how many wheelbarrow loads of dineros did it take to wrap a Class C RV that's bigger than the Guppy? When you hear about people with more money with brains, it's pretty obvious there's a pair of those folks driving a thoroughly used motorhome in Georgia that fit that category. We spent less on the Guppy when we bought her than those people did on a cosmetic project that doesn't do a damn thing to improve the RV except make its age less apparent to the untutored eye.

Then again, so did the wrap purchasers unless they were total suckers. According to the NADA guide, the  current average sales price for their particular model is between $5,000 and $6,000. We joke about the tires on the Guppy being worth more the RV itself, but those folks in Georgia have us beat. That wrap is probably worth more than the vehicle under it. Like I said, some people have very strange priorities.

First, beard baubles. Now this:

Dyed armpit hair.

Seriously. According to the Washington Post, more and more women are deciding not just to forego shaving their pits (a common choice during the winter months) but to go one step farther and dye them.

And, having dyed the pits, some are moving on to the next step.

Bedazzlers. Beads, rhinestones, and extensions. In their armpits. Some people definitely have way too much free time and disposable income.

It does occur to me that from the viewpoint of the aesthetician dying a couple armpits may be a step up from doing full Brazilians. It's not quite as up close and personal. Then again, if dyed pits become popular enough, women may decide to stop waxing, regrow their pubic hair, and request coochie dye jobs, too.

We live in interesting times.